Sinnerman, Prophet, Saint
by Sagga Bott
Summary: The marks of the saints and a past he won’t remember force Chase and House to face religion head on. They won’t get his fellow without a fight! Chase/OMC, House/Chase.
1. Prologue: Forgetting

**Sinnerman, ****Prophet, Saint**

_by Sagga Bott_

Summary: The marks of the saints and a past he won't remember force Chase and House face religion head on. They won't get his fellow without a fight!

Pairings: Chase/OMC, House/Chase

Rating: NC-17

Warning(s): Language, Adult Situations, Violence, M/M relationships. Do not read this story if any of these bother you!

Genre: Drama, Action/Adventure, Supernatural

Spoilers: Up to season 4 Finale.

Disclaimer: I don't own House. I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: Been a while. This story has been sitting around for some time. I figured I better start posting. Hopefully I can finish the edits and post the whole thing in good time.

**Prologue: Forgetting**

House's mental meandering came to the obvious conclusion that it probably wasn't a good idea to forget precisely with whom he was dealing. One horrifying brush with a place he didn't even believe in was bad enough. His belief, however, held no weight. Real or not, what he'd felt, the complete loss of hope, no torment but the promise of unimaginably much to come. So, if this was what he could look forward to, should he inadvertently piss off his current roommate, then it was high time House learnt to hold his tongue.

Yet every infuriating word, every strand of hair, every charming smile was still that of the Robert Chase he knew, and not very well, as he was finding out.

"Just eat it."

The response from next to him: "I don't like it."

They couldn't possibly be right. This infuriating man, this indolent boy could not be who he had appeared and who they said. What they feared. What House feared, for alternate but no less existential reasons.

"Would you stop fucking staring!"

House looked back to his meal. "Can't help it. I'm still looking for those wings."

"Well, I've been looking for your horns for years."

"Any luck?"

Chase tried but couldn't hide entirely his smile. "Not yet."

House could commiserate with his lack of success. "When those pre-pubesent female patient's of your where swooning and chatting about how pretty and angelic you were I never thought that they could be right."

"Hey!" Chase objected, as House had expected. "I'm pretty," he continued, holding back his smile, which soon turned into laughter.

House chose not to comment but his amusement was clear in his expression.

See, this is what he was dealing with. Heavenly soldier, hellish minion, who could believe either? Except when Chase would get that distant look, or say something that nobody should be able to know, or see things that no body should be tortured with seeing. Then maybe he could understand why this…this curse would not fall upon any ordinary man; there would have to be something else, something special about him. Perhaps, then he could understand why some thing chose to forget it all, and live a single life, even if not one that started very well.

So it wasn't Chase he was having a problem with, other than him being a picky eater. It was the other thing that he couldn't grasp. Then again, spiritual incarnations weren't his forte. And if what Chase continued to tell him was true, then Robert Chase and the other one were one in the same. How was that possible? Chase had blurted out a brief explanation when House had railed on him after a horrible meeting with one of his brethren, but he didn't imagine that a more detailed recount would settle any better in his mind.

What would probably settle even worse were the things Chase saw. Creatures he was once again becoming familiar with, old friends that he hadn't seen in a very long time. Though he thought that some may be enemies, it was hard to tell. Where there was light they sometimes brought shadows which obscured their form and purpose. Where darkness had laid it's claimed sometimes they brought light, so bright that his eyes strung and their secrets remained. Too often he didn't know what side they were on. Bright or dark, there was no litmus test for allegiance, and their actions were often more obfuscating that words could ever be.

Chase heard an aggravated sigh that didn't come from him. "Now what?" was the terse question posed by House.

Turning his gaze from what only he could see Chase responded. "'Now what' what?" He wasn't being infuriating on purpose but House was getting on his nerves. Always asking questions, always staring, there were moments when Chase actually wanted to know what House's take on all this was. How did a rational mind evaluate this situation?

"You're doing that glowy thing again, Casper."

"I'm not a bloody ghost!"

Then there were moments like this, where he couldn't fathom that House was rational. He barely believed he was sane. It had taken House's explanation about the friendly poltergeist before Chase understood the reference. "Not very apt," had been Chase's response. House apparently didn't care.

Infuriating man.

"I wonder if you can read in the dark?"

Chase shook his head and poked at his meal. At night, in the dark, when he was supposed to be sleeping, House behind him, or in front of him, Chase would lie there, eyes open, seeing people and things that were hundreds of miles away. It was a familiar feeling, one that he'd forgotten. It brought back with it many other memories that he couldn't quite comprehend. Being, over and above it all, and yet still in the thick of it. He could feel himself floating away, getting closer to whatever it was he'd given up nearly twenty eight years ago. In those moments, latching on to what was close and real was his only refuge, his anchor in the tumult, even if it was the thin sheet over the bed or the warm body adjacent.

Strangely House never mentioned it. As of late House had been almost nice to him. Suffering through his former boss's brief detox together, with nobody to depend on but each other, probably went some way towards easing the tension. Not to mention other extra curricular activities.

"You're going to need energy if we're going to fuck again."

Chase gave up on his meal but sat back with a smile. "Have we lost the romance already?"

"I promise to adhere to all the traditional anniversary gifts."

"I wouldn't put it past you handing me a sheet of paper for our first anniversary," Chase pouted playfully. "Christ, you're cheap."

House sat back in mock shock. "A heavenly soldier using the lord's name in vain?"

"Trust me," Chase rolled over to crouch over House, "in the eyes of most, I've done worse." In House's eyes he could see the faint reflection of the glow that House was often describing to him.

"Would you like to do something worse right now?" House asked coyly, his not so appetising meal forgotten as well.

"We could…but an old guy like you needs to keep his energy up." Chase glanced down to the wrapped meal that was dangling from House's hand. A moment later it met the floor with a wet slap and House's hand found something more appealing in the smooth skin underneath his roommates shirt.

Their lips had just met and the rage of lust was growing. Then House's hand felt something wet. He broke the embrace and saw slick, blood colouring his fingers. Chase's eyes followed House's and a curse passed his lips before he gasped in sudden pain. Rigid with discomfort House had to help Chase down to lie on the bed, their one piece of furniture.

"Chase?" House was getting used to the blood and the unexpected appearance of the injuries on Chase's body. What he still struggled with was the pain he saw. Unlike him, Chase could find no relief in little white pills, or even in sleep. "Chase, come on stay with me here."

What might have been worse were the semi-out-of-body experiences that House saw Chase suffer through and were later described to him. The blank, wide open eyes and parted lips, spoke nothing of what Chase was seeing, nor the small shreds of him that were torn away with almost every scene. House wasn't one to believe in the fairness of the universe but he could not explain why Chase deserved to suffer through all this.

The scent of flowers, so strong it prick tears to his eyes, filled the air. Slick warmth flowed over paling skin, contrary to the forces of gravity. House held on as he felt Chase spasm in his arms. A choked cry struggled past the younger man's lips as searing pain tore through his feet. The pain was then in his wrists but he no longer had breath with which to scream.

"Robert, hold on," House implored softly, his arms still firmly enclosing the other man. There was nothing either of them could do but hold on while the worst of it passed. It would, like it always did, only to return later, unwanted and unannounced.

"…it hurts…oh…God…" the choking whispers of agony barely made it to House's ears. "…I can't go back…please…don't make me…please…"

Teeth clenched against his own pain and that which he could only imagine, House held on and watched as bright tears fell from glowing white eyes.

"I won't let you take me…"

House held on. What else could he do? Foreign soil, foreign language, and no one to trust but each other.

"Don't give up," House ordered, tersely, quietly, his encouragement too necessary to be stymied by his disbelief or cynicism. "Robert," house attempted to find some focus in the eyes veiled in luminance. "Chase, hold on…I'm right here…" how pedestrian, how useless, he was certainly no priest, not a man to be depended upon, not one to give comfort. The only pain he'd truly cared to take away was his own. And now when he would try his hand at comfort, he saw only his failure written in the lines of pain and lines of wetness, both clear and red.

But House didn't hear were the silenced screams. He couldn't feel the fresh breeze replacing an acrid miasma of death. He didn't see the fading atrocities and the dark clouds evaporating to expose a calming and familiar blue –one facet of Chase's torture, extinguished.

House saw only torment. He saw no blessing.

**End Prologue**

_Sagga Bott..._**  
**


	2. The Living Shadows

**Chapter 1: The Living Shadows**

Some days earlier…

He should have known. Things had been going too well for it to last. If he had simply kept count the surprise would have been less of one. But he's fallen into the easy comfort of an unconcerned life; unconcerned about his job so long as he did it well by his own standards. Unconcerned with the opinions of other people, they could cal him an ass-kisser all they wanted. Unconcerned with the future –he could coast through the rest of his life, being a talented and bright doctor afforded him at least that luxury. And in all this lack of concern, Chase rediscovered for a brief period, that almost forgotten sense of peace he'd been surprised to find in his father's profession. Then the nightmare began again, and he cursed himself for falling into the trap of ease and comfort. He really should have known better.

Something in the corridor passing by caught his eye, and only his.

The white pill flipped ended over end, following a sharp arch as gravity took hold. Aware of that eventuality, a mouth was open in just the right spot to catch the small object that would bring him welcomed relief from his aching leg. He was still revelling in the freedom of being able to take his pills whenever he wanted. The New Jersey detective that had attempted to thwart his habit was now just an ugly memory that only taught him to hide his stash better. It was surprising how much trouble a thermometer forgotten up someone's ass could cause.

Now well into the aftermath, bruises healed and vanished, House attempted to find balance again. Though much had changed, he didn't expect it to stay that way for long. He was and addict, a junkie, only the nanoscopic chemical guiding too much of his existence was available with a prescription and he could still hold down a job. If anybody was surprised then it was there problem not his. Or so he convinced himself. He told himself he couldn't have fallen from grace, never recalling being on its plains in the first place.

It didn't bother him if they're words hushed to a bare whisper when he entered the room to refill his already full cup of coffee. He didn't face them as he dumped out the old brew and replaced it with the new. It didn't phase him when they would only meet his eyes for a second, briefly showing their disappointment. It did stop him short however when his intensivist didn't notice his presence at all. Soon his scrutiny drew the attention of the other two fellows and they followed his sight to the third.

"Chase, you ok?" Cameron ventured first.

His mouth opened and his words were ready but he froze.

House walked into the man's line of sight and tilted his head just a little as he eyed the Australian. "What?" What was with that strange look on the young man's face? House followed Chase's gaze and looked behind him. There was nothing there but air and the glass wall a few feet behind him. He turned back to find that Chase had moved.

House stepped back, Chase being just a little too close for comfort, but he wasn't Chase's target. He continued past House and out into the corridor. He watched with wide eyes as a teenage boy walked down the corridor. Only it wasn't the boy that had stolen his attention. It was the thing walking with him, the thing he knew nobody else but he could see. When it turned around to look at him Chase took a startled step back and promptly hit his shoulder against the doorjamb of to the conference room.

"Chase what is it?" Cameron stepped in front of him, concern in her brown eyes.

He glanced to her than back to the spectre that was walking with the boy again. He couldn't find any words. He saw another pass next to another person and closed his eyes, ignoring the stare of the being when it looked at him. More seemed to appear then, precipitating out of the air to stand before him, staring, searching, asking. The corridor was soon filled with them, all different types that he had no desire to identify. He was suffocating! He had to get away!

Eyes still closed Chase stumbled back into the conference room, only opening them when he was sure he was facing the window. He felt the apparitions fade from sight, though their presence remained, an itch in the back of his mind.

He felt cold. The bright spring sun was on him, all around him but didn't give him any warmth. A cool tingle of perspiration pricked his forehead and the back of his neck while he tried to keep his breathing normal. A heavy hand unexpectedly fell on his shoulder and Chase startled badly, pulling away from the grip.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," House told him with a voice that held some concern in it, as though he was a patient that had just displayed yet another strange symptom.

Chase took a shallow breath and shook his head. "They're not ghosts." He swallowed and turned back to the view through the window barely managing to hold the despair inside. They were creeping up on him, encroaching on the life he carved out, ready to dash it all. He knew this time there would be no escape, but he'd try anyway. "I think they're real."

"What?"

"…nothing."

---H/C---

Annabelle Nelson seemed like a nice girl. She was working as a lawyer, just recently hired to a firm in the area. She had a pretty smile, bright eyes and an optimistic attitude. After assuring them that she and Cameron weren't twins separated at birth they got on with treating her; or tying to. Nothing fit and what they had tried only made her worse. Another diagnostic session was coming to an end, the symptoms on the whiteboard having been modified to the patient's current presentation.

"How can all the lab tests be normal?" Cameron asked of no one in particular. The blood sample and spinal fluid they'd collected had all come back typical.

"It could still be MS, lupus, CNS vasculitis, glioma or another brain cancer…" Foreman stated knowledgeably. The host of neurological symptoms put this case squarely in his court. The professional challenge was exciting, as was always being one step ahead of his colleagues, who were not experts in the field. Even House had to defer to him at times.

"It could still be an infection."

Foreman shook his head with a condescending smile at Chase's suggestion. Infection might be the only thing he could think of but Foreman knew better.

"Maybe you weren't paying attention when the patient continued to decline when Cameron tried antibiotics," House snipped nastily. Chase didn't even turn a glare at him. His eyes were still on the white board and the list of symptoms: headache, vision loss, impaired speech, sweats and, most strangely, paralysis and spasms. How could somebody be paralyzed and still have muscle spasms?

The autonomic dysfunction that was beginning to present wasn't indicative of either the paralysis or the spasms winning out and they couldn't take her off the diazepam to get a clearer picture of her condition. After one particularly violent set of spasms broke her ulna, Chase had begun a drip of the muscle relaxant. Lessening the dose in order to get a better feel for the symptoms had only resulted in more involuntary muscle spasms, as had their first attempt at treating this ailment as an infection.

"Maybe whatever this is, is resistant to penicillin," Chase suggested.

"Or maybe it's not an infection at all. We need to do a biopsy." House stood up from where he'd been seated on the table and limped towards the door. The others followed, Chase still arguing his case.

"There are other things we could do first."

"We could watch our fingernails grow and wait to see if she gets any better by herself too, but this way is a lot more fun, and more conclusive."

"You can't just drill a hole in her head because you have a hunch. You're being impatient."

House stopped and stared down his unusually vociferous fellow. "Fine. If you have a _new_ idea we'll try that! If you're still stuck on infection, then shut up!"

"It could be drug-induced—"

"You always think it's drugs, or alcohol," Foreman scoffed, rolling his eyes.

Chase turned a glare to Foreman. "And you always think it's Lupus. Which of us has been right more often?" The sudden pugnacity left House and Cameron glancing between the two men, as another troublesome clue in the unusual mystery of the intensive care specialist emerged. Chase rarely snapped at anyone. Foreman's brows were furrowed putting a set of dark lines into the smooth, dark forehead. He cast a glance to Cameron and House who were both looking as surprised as he, though House was a touch amused.

Cameron made to intervene but House beat her too it. "If you think it's drugs, prove it. The rest of us are going to go do that doctoring thing." House nodded his head in the direction of their patient while looking at Foreman and Cameron. They left, Foreman shaking his head at the odd confrontation.

House was still giving Chase an openly judging look which he knew would annoy the man, as he saw it was. Something was going on with his fellow and so far he'd figured out nothing. All he knew was that Chase was distant and, the best word House could think of was, unbalanced.

"Whatever is going on, keep it out of the hospital," House scolded, his callousness winning out over his mild concern. "I don't want you killing anymore patients."

"But it's okay for you to give a weak patient a dangerous procedure, because you're stumped." Chase knew he was treading on dangerous territory. The last time he'd opposed House like this he'd gotten a fist in the face for his effort. But in the shadow of his current problems, House seemed like nothing at all. And at least House was now medicated and thus a little more even-tempered.

"I'm not stumped. I have an idea and I'm carrying it out. You're stumped, so you keep repeating an idea that's already been ruled out. And infection was Cameron's idea. Get your own."

Although it had been Cameron who suggested tetanus to House, Chase had commented first during the rush to stabilize Annabelle during a full-body spasm that it seemed like tetanus. While he'd been finishing with Nelson and leaving instructions for the diazepam to be administered, the others had continued with the differential and Cameron had brought up the possible diagnosis. Chase had arrived back just in time to hear House consider and then shoot down the suggestion, as it only accounted for a few of the long list of symptoms. He hadn't said anything, though he wished that Cameron had pushed more for House to consider tetanus. But he hadn't felt much like playing these games as of late anyway; not with the portents of greater conflicts whispering in his dreams.

So, he dismissed easily his boss's jibe. "I'll pay royalties to her later. Right now I'm going to give Ms. Nelson a different antibiotic." He was turned halfway around, about to go pick out an antibiotic when…

"Do, and I'll fire you," House threatened. It was the only thing he really had on Chase anymore, but this job was the only thing Chase really had too. Chase's behaviour had been somewhat odd as of late but that he came to work and performed well as a doctor was never in question. House was at once annoyed and intrigued. He wondered how deep this change went or if this was simple some juvenile rebellion phase Chase was belatedly going through.

Chase couldn't believe House was doing this. House didn't listen to him, didn't like him, didn't respect him and Chase figured he should have been used to that. But this was getting old. How many times were his ideas supposed to be disregarded just because they were his?

"Fine, fire me," Chase was going to say but was cut off before the angry words could come out.

"We can't get a procedure room until tomorrow," Cameron's worried voice informed.

"Wilson can get us one," Foreman suggested following behind Cameron. "Head of oncology can bump a couple of biopsies to tomorrow."

House felt all their eyes on him even as he kept his heated gaze on Chase. The young physician crossed his arms and tilted his head expectantly. He knew that the relationship between House and Wilson was strained as of late, even months after the betrayal. Many people still churned theories over the act that had even the Dean of Medicine stomping through the corridors. When finally the situation imploded and the dust cleared, nothing substantial had changed except for the subtle new rift between old friends. Lines had been drawn, each thinking they now knew where the other rated their importance.

"Book the biopsy for tomorrow. I can give her antibiotics tonight. If I'm wrong she doesn't get any better and you can crack her head open in the morning," Chase pushed and waited for his minimal victory.

House hated being one-upped. He hated being backed into a corner, especially if there was a door there that he just wouldn't open. He glanced to said wood door, _James Wilson, M.D. Head of Oncology_ written in shiny grey letters across the surface. He had apologized to Wilson (in his way) but there was still a thin fog of mistrust between them that left their friendship in a state of perpetual awkwardness. He couldn't run to Wilson every time he had a problem, because in the back of his mind he wondered if they were still friends on that level, or was the trust gone? This time he wasn't doing anything wrong (unless Chase was right) but he wasn't going to go beg to get some time in a procedure room. There were certain social things that House chose to avoid, and a great deal as of late.

Besides, he was certain that the patient was lying to him. Well, she had been lying to him before. Right now she could barely form coherent sentences. Still he wasn't going to Wilson just for her.

"Give her your antibiotic. And stay the night just to make sure she doesn't flat line." He roughly shouldered past the Aussie and went back to his office. Chase glared back at him but didn't waste so much as a glance on his co-workers before going to get the antibiotic he wanted.

He was followed

"What are you thinking?" Cameron's voice floated to him from the other side of the closet door in the pharmacy. She peaked around it, watching his hands skim over the numerous clear bags with different solutions.

"Just curious, or are you looking for more ideas to pass-off as your own?" He found the bag for which he was looking. "Metronidazole, for anaerobic bacterial infection."

"Still thinking tetanus?" She ignored the jab at her, not feeling at all guilty. She had only made a suggestion. The patient was more important than Chase's pride or looking good in front of House. "It only explains the spasms and the headache."

"And the autonomic dysfunction and the fever."

"The mild fever. A tetanus infection that bad would produce a more severe fever. And what about the rest of the neurological symptoms and the intermittent paralysis? There's nothing wrong with wanting to be right, wanting to prove to House that you can-"

"I'm not trying to prove anything to him. I'm trying to help this woman before she can't be helped."

Cameron flinched when the closet door was slammed shut with just a bit too much force. Not far away a pair of nurses shifted their eyes to them but looked away with a shake of their heads, the antics of the diagnostics department having become tedious and bothersome after so long.

"It doesn't fit, Chase," Cameron warned. She fell into step next to him as he moved quickly towards their patient.

"Why does one thing have to explain it all? Why can't she have tetanus and something else?"

"She could but the chances of two infections that both have primarily neurological symptoms is unlikely."

"Why?" He challenged simply, while he hung the bag and removed the transparent brown covering that was used for storage. "Because House didn't think of it?"

"She's not a drug user." Finally the crux of the matter. That was the suggestion that continued to annoy her with Chase and this case. His insistence that she used drugs made her less accepting of and more hostile towards his ideas as she tried on some level to prove that good girls can be good girls without cracking and going bad.

They'd all seen the scars on the inside crease of her elbow. Nelson had said they were from old blood tests as she'd been sick a while ago. The story was believable but Chase had immediately countered that she was using drugs. The tox screen had come back clean but that didn't prove anything except that she hadn't used lately. Still Cameron believed her.

"And how well do you know her?" Chase asked sarcastically.

"I know her type." She put her hand on his arm to stop him and he pulled it quickly back, uncomfortable with the touch. Cameron didn't seem to notice as she went on. "She's worked hard to get where she is and she's not going throw it away by doing something stupid, like taking drugs…or having a dumb fling with a colleague."

"Oh, ouch!" Chase put a hand to his heart and a fake wounded expression on his face. The expression vanished quickly, giving even more proof of its mendacity. Cameron's lips thinned. "I know her type too," Chase started. "She can't see the bad side of any of her actions. She thinks she walks with the angels and is ignorant of all her short comings, of which there are more than a few. She takes too much responsibility for the tragic, unfortunate things that aren't her fault. Let's herself be hurt even if she can see it coming a mile away and wonders why nobody commends her for her nobility." The line was attached and Chase set the flow rate on the infuser.

"Just because you've never taken the moral high-ground-"

He didn't even face her when he laughed. "Is that what they're calling that sanctimonious shit these days? Or is just another American term I'm unfamiliar with?"

"Being a human being means having some empathy, trusting in people. I don't know where yours went."

"Being a human being also means protecting yourself from things that will only end in hurt! I don't understand why you keep…believing when you know what's around the corner! That's not empathy! That's stupidity and it doesn't make you a better person for doing it."

Cameron's right hand clenched and she fought and barely won over the urge to slap him.

"Keep it up and you'll end up like her," He nodded to the sleeping patient. He picked up the packaging and the other rubbish and tossed them. As he left he stated, knowing somehow that it was true, "She is a drug user."

---H/C---

"I see he slapped you with the graveyard shift."

Chase shrugged. "The antibiotics were my idea," he excused. "What are you still doing here?" It was well past midnight and even the most dedicated of physicians tried to make it home before the next day rolled over. Mostly that was for the sake of families, letting the kids see you before they went to bed, knowing that he or she would be gone back to work before they got up. Maybe it was only something that good parents did. Chase's father hadn't.

"Just trying to clear up a few files that have been cluttering my desk," Wilson said casually. "I thought I'd take a break. Thought I'd drag you to take one too." He and Chase weren't close. They didn't interact often, barely nodded when the passed each other in the corridor but after House had taken out his frustration on Chase and Chase's subsequent withdrawal from the rest of the team, Wilson was felt he had to offer something to help, even if it was just a meal without being judged. He knew people were still giving him a hard time about Detective Tritter's meddling, which had only brought back memories of his betrayal of House to Vogler.

Wilson knew how it felt to be the bad guy. And when it was House that played the good guy, you had to be really, really bad. Oddly enough, Wilson had been forgiven rather quickly once it leaked to the hospital staff what he'd done. Perhaps his years of silent suffering as House's friend and his general blundering charm had gotten him a free pass.

"I have to stay with Ms. Nelson," Chase said, declining the meal offer, despite his hunger.

"I figured. That's why I brought the break here." He held up the paper bag with a fast food logo written on the side.

"Um…thanks."

Wilson quietly, as not to disturb the patient, brought a chair over and handed Chase a burger. He knew Chase didn't indulge in fast food often but every once in a while seemed to be okay. Wilson dug into his burger, skipping dinner having left him famished. He didn't even care when a mixture of tomato-water, mayonnaise and ketchup dripped from his sandwich and fell onto the trousers he'd just pulled fresh from the drycleaner's plastic bag this morning. With the pinky of his right hand he scooped up the small dollop of condiments and brought it to his mouth. He looked to his eating partner just in time to catch a slight smile before he took another, timid bite of his burger.

"So how's she doing?"

"Okay for now. Added TIG to go along with the metronidazole."

"Tetanus?"

"Looks like."

"You're getting good at this," Wilson complimented through his mouthful, thinking that perhaps Chase would like to hear it from someone. Chase didn't respond, still pondering the patient. Meanwhile James who was about to speak again realized his mouth was still full. He'd spoken a moment ago while still chewing, but he felt to do so twice was past rude and pushing boorish.

He assumed that Chase probably knew all about proper manners too, but he rarely used them. There was an art, or something not quite tangible that Wilson could never quite master about the whole extensive list of proper table manners. When Julie had insisted that they go out to a very fancy restaurant, the type where the waiters wore tuxes almost as nice as the patrons and served the food (none of which was written in English on the menu) with white gloves, Wilson had always deferred to her in regards to the proper way of approaching the artful but not quite edible looking dishes. She'd giggled and shown him what to do. It was in those moments that their marriage, fraught with arguments and misunderstandings felt like it was supposed to. It was partnership and love, and he never bothered to figure out what all the forks were for.

Chase must have known. There was just something about his air of lassitude but the distinct lack of worry in it that made Wilson suspect. He imagined that Chase could have, if he'd wanted, fit right in at that overpriced restaurant -charmed the maitre de into giving him and his company a table even if they didn't have a reservation. He could make polite but still interesting conversation, draw out a few laughs, play the people around him like a well-tuned instrument. He'd order the perfect wine for their meal, translate the unfamiliar entrees in the menu without making anyone feel unintelligent and make the perfect toast before commenting on the vintage of their drinks. Of course that wasn't what fascinated him. It was that Chase could probably do all this and chose not to that drew Wilson's curiosity. Maybe that's what drew everyone's curiosity after they'd gotten past his looks.

"There's still something else going on. Tetatus doesn't explain everything," Chase added in a vague mimicry of his colleagues that he didn't expect Wilson to pick-up on.

"Well, with this infection off the table you guys can see clearly whatever else is going on."

"Yeah," Chase murmured unenthusiastically around a bite of his meal.

Wilson wiped his mouth with a napkin, giving himself a moment to consider what he was going to say. "You don't have much time left in your fellowship. Don't let him get the better of you now."

Chase wanted to tell Wilson that his mood wasn't about House. He had much bigger, much creepier, much scarier problems to deal with. He couldn't say that though. And, of course, behind those problems was House, who he had turned into a non-issue when he gave up on him and gave up on them. Not in a romantic sense, but in regards to a good working relationship.

"He's not getting to me. He already got to me and I've already…I don't know…lost? Broken? I'm not exactly sure what this is supposed to be called."

Wilson was going to speak but Chase cut him short.

"If you're going to apologize, don't. You haven't done anything wrong."

"I was going to apologize for him."

Chase cringed. Somehow that was even worse. "Don't bother. I don't want, or need an apology." He wasn't sure what he wanted any more. He intended to finish his fellowship and then leave with no intention of speaking to any of these people again. Not because there weren't any he actually liked, but because he couldn't risk leaving a trail. He was already risking quite a bit staying here to the end of his term.

Wilson crumpled his burger wrapper and napkin together. He wasn't sure what to say. He wasn't sure what was going on in Chase's head that the man he'd admired for so long meant so little to him. It was one of the reasons he'd gone to Tritter and agreed to testify against House in the first place. House had snapped at Lisa and brought her to tears. She hadn't deserved that. He'd punched Chase, when he'd been trying to save a child's life, and save her from a life of disfigurement. He hadn't deserved that. House had used his best friend to support his drug habit. Wilson didn't think he deserved that, and he couldn't watch the downward spiral. He couldn't turn away from it like he had turned away from his brother after he'd snapped at everyone and pushed them away.

His brother had vanished, becoming on of the many nameless unfortunates that slept in cardboard boxes in dank alleys. Maybe he was a John Doe listed under a number in a pauper's grave along with the other lost ones. Wilson could not watch his best friend do the same and not take the drastic measure he knew he needed to in order to save him before Detective Tritter made it too late.

It had worked. It had cost a part of their almost perfectly if somewhat erratically running friendship, but it was worth it. House was stable, still and addict, but James liked to think he was less controlled by his addiction than he had been. Or he hoped, at the very least, that House was smarter about it.

"You did the right thing." The soft statement almost sounded like his conscience trying to reassure him, except for the accent.

Wilson directed his gaze to the man at his left and found Chase staring out the glass wall.

"He needed someone who loved him enough to cause a momentary hurt, so that he could be saved." His voice was barely a whisper and his words sounded as distant as Chase had been sometimes over the last few months.

"Chase?"

The blond man stood from his chair and absently placed his burger there before striding slowly to the rooms only exit. He peered out and his eyes seemed to follow something as it moved down the hall. Behind him, Wilson couldn't see anything except an empty corridor. After a quick glance back at the patient, who appeared stable, Chase continued out, Wilson following with confusion shading his face.

Chase turned right, stepping slowly and silently, just watching, awed and scared at the same time.

"Azrael," he whispered. Wilson heard and recognized the name sometimes given to the angel of death.

Chase stopped cold.

Wilson nearly bumped into him. Eventually did but that was because Chase took a startled step back, eyes wide with fright.

"Chase?"

From down the hall and around a corner the intermittent beeping that they'd barely noticed turned to a sustained shrill tone as the heart monitor flat-lined. A cry of sadness and pain carried to them as the poor woman lamented the loss of her loved one.

Chase nodded. A moment later he relaxed and breathed again.

"Chase, what is it?"

Chase could only shake his head. He couldn't say what he'd just seen. He didn't want to end up in the psyche ward, though sometimes he wondered if a short trip there might do him some good. He'd been able to see them but this was the first time one had ever responded to him. And this wasn't just any one of them. That was Azrael. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but he knew.

"-you okay? What happened?" Wilson's hands were at his shoulders and he was gently shaking him when Chase's mind finally became aware again.

"…it's…nothing." Chase pulled away and straightened his labcoat. Eyes down, voice hollow, he thanked Wilson for the burger and went back to Ms. Nelson's room.

Once he was out of sight Wilson went to the room where they had just heard the tell-tale sounds of someone's death. As he approached he saw a sad but collected colleague, Sampson. The other man gave a sad shake of his head. There was nothing anyone could do. They couldn't cure death. This patient was no longer theirs.

Wilson nodded solemnly and turned to go the way he'd come. The trip back to his office was filled with silent, furious thought, eventually breaking down to two statements that he could not quite believe.

Azrael had been there.

Chase had seen him.

---H/C---

**End Chapter 1**


	3. Sight More Than Seeing

Chapter Rating: PG

**Chapter 2: Sight More Than Seeing**

"She's getting better."

House looked at Cameron appraisingly, eventually saying, "You sound disappointed." He went back to the whiteboard. "If Chase keeps this up I'll have to think of a different nickname than 'Doctor Idiot'."

Foreman stepped up to the board and pushed a finger through some of the symptoms, wiping away parts of the letters. "Tetanus explains the spasms, maybe the headache, the muscle stiffness, and maybe the autonomic dysfunction."

Chase entered the conference room, and sat down heavily in a vacant chair at the table. Cameron and Foreman only gave him a brief glance, their expressions showing their reluctance to admit that he'd been right. House kept his eyes on the board. Weighed down by fatigue, their responses to his entrance went unnoticed by Chase.

"AIDS," Cameron stated, again sounding disappointed.

"White count was normal," Foreman said.

House was curiously silent, as was Chase. They hadn't run a full STD panel yet. House had ordered it but then they symptoms had changed and seemed to rule out those possibilities, and the tests were never conducted.

"The rest of the symptoms could be syphilis," Foreman went on. "We should run a full STD panel."

"Now you're just throwing spaghetti against the wall. I liked you better when you had ideas," House taunted, breaking his silence.

Foreman wasn't done. "It could still be CNS vasculitis, MS, glioma-"

"Still liked you better before." House brushed past the aggravated doctor to his other two, one who looked tired though not drastically so, and the other who still looked a little stunned. "Cancel the biopsy. If she has AIDS, she has an opportunistic infection that's made a meal of her brain…or she's a druggie."

"Foreman's right –it could still be a host of other things: vasculitis, cancer, Behcet's, syphilis."

"Syphilis would have responded to the antibiotics," Chase informed with a distinct lack of vigour.

"What he said. It's almost as though you want to drill a hole in her skull and steal a piece of her brain. You've gotten reckless, Cameron."

"It's what fits. We need a diagnosis before there's nothing left of her brain to save."

"No, you just like your story better. Nice girl gets unfortunate disease but it's not her fault, so she's still a nice girl. I prefer my story. Nice girl can't stand being nice anymore, does heroin with a needle contaminated with clostridium tetani and inhales some burning heroin fumes one too many times. Mine has a better structure and more drama, but she did it to herself, and you know that good people don't make mistakes." Cameron's glare followed him as he headed for his office.

"Heroin-induced spongiform leukoencephalopathy," Foreman inferred from House's words but clearly didn't believe. Sure House's theory explained everything in as little as one neat instance, but he didn't think that the girl was a user. Chase did, but Chase thought everyone used. Foreman thought that maybe he was just projecting. "We're not cancelling the biopsy," he stated. "We're still going to need definitive proof."

"CSF will have the JC viral DNA in it if she has AIDS. We can run that test. If there's nothing, we do the biopsy and look for white matter spongiform deterioration and an elevated lactate level."

"I'll run it, and the HIV test. You guys go to talk to her," Cameron delegated, seeing that House was happily ensconced by his computer games once again. She left abruptly; clearly avoiding speaking to the patient she had been staunchly defending since this case began. Chase kept his eyes on the table. Foreman watched her go, wondering when and how this patient had gotten to her.

"Ms. Nelson," Foreman began calmly once in her room, "we think you might have AIDS. We need to know if you've had unprotected sex or if you've taken any drugs."

"I always use protection…not stupid…some pain killers …headaches," she offered warily, brokenly. The speech impairment was still as strong as ever.

"We mean illegal drugs, ecstasy, meth, heroin."

"No!" That response was emphatic. The poor co-ordination of her facial muscles made it somewhat garbled but her eyes still conveyed the vehemence in her denial.

Foreman sighed.

"Ever 'chased the dragon'?" Chase asked moving to her other side.

"No!" Another forceful denial.

"But you know what it is," Chase said, cracking her little deception. "It's inhaling the vapours of heated heroin," he informed Foreman over the bed and then looked back down to its occupant. "I knew someone who enjoyed that hunt too."

"I…don't do…drugs!"

Chase glanced to the side. He sat on the edge of the bed and then leaned forward so that he could whisper in her ear. "Nobody expects you to be perfect. It's okay to make mistakes, and it's okay not to want people to know. But don't die holding on to your pride. It's cold comfort." He pulled away. "You don't even have to say it. Just tell me if I'm wrong." He paused making sure she understood and he had her attention. "You injected yourself with heroin." He waited several seconds. "You inhaled the vapour." Her face pulled in shame and tears slipped from one eye then the other.

Chase heard Foreman huff in derision. He could practically feel the bald man shaking his head as his concern turned to contempt. Eric Foreman was always so quick to judge and that, more than his arrogance and his audacity, Chase hated the most.

He said something about going to the lab and then it was just Robert and Annabelle. She was so ashamed, felt so dirty and so stupid. She'd only made a mistake. Maybe only made it once, but once was enough. The brain damage, some if not most of it, would be permanent, but clinical recovery was possible. With treatment nobody may even be able to tell of her experimentation with narcotics.

"You'll make it. You're strong, you're optimistic, you're smart. You're pretty." She smiled weakly at him. "You'll make it." He almost called her Cameron. In nightmares he could see his colleague in the same position, burdened with grief and depression that no one could see, and she'd turn to drugs and waste away. Worst of all, Chase could see himself, standing over her, watching, condemning, doing nothing to help her because he had caused it. Pushed her, tested her, as was his duty.

Shaking off the unsettling dream Robert gave Annabelle's hand a comforting squeeze and then left her alone. He had to apologize to Cameron.

"Foreman already told me. She takes heroin. You were right. She is a drug user," Cameron said sourly when she saw him on her way back to diagnostics from the lab. She'd left the tests to run under the skilled supervision of one of the actual lab technicians. She didn't need to be there when the results came back that House and Chase were right.

"_Was_ a drug user. I don't think she'll make the same error again." Chase fell into step next to her.

She didn't deign to respond. They continued on in tense silence.

"Look, I'm sorry for what I said yesterday. I…I shouldn't have said… what I said about you." It was a poor apology but he'd kept any excuses out of it. Don't ruin apologies with excuses, someone had once told him. He tried not to, especially when he felt he was wrong. His problems were just that, his. He hadn't intended to take any of his unrest out on her.

Cameron wasn't sure what to say so the awkward silence stretched out. Her opportunity to say anything was coming to an end since the diagnostics rooms were looming only a few feet in front of them. She was just going to blurt out whatever she could. "It's okay." His hand was already on the handle to the conference room. "And whatever is going on, y'know, personally," she made a vague gesture that clearly indicated she was not adept at offering this sort of assurance to him after being rebuffed so many times before. "You can tell me."

He stared at her for a long second. House's call for them from through the glass didn't stir him at all. "Thanks. But it's nothing." He went into the room.

"You two, plan dates on your own time," House scolded briefly. "So our girl is a druggy. I guess you had to be right eventually."

Chase gave him a brief, humourless smile before picking up the newspaper and flipping directly to the crossword. Foreman who'd come back to the department after his detour to inform Cameron was leaning back in his chair somewhat displeased that he hadn't been the one to unravel this neurological medical mystery.

"Once we do the biopsy and the results come back positive, we can start treatment," Cameron said in a sigh.

"Why are you waiting? Go treat her now. Unless you have a better idea or think she has a few extra neurons she'd like to get rid of." House stared at her with wide eyes until she headed for the door. "You two can do whatever it is you two do when you aren't working." House gave Foreman a quick look, but lingered on Chase when the boy didn't even look up from his puzzle. He considered snatching it from him, filling in as many of the boxes as quickly as possible, just to annoy him because this near-silent treatment was getting old. He didn't give in. He went to his desk, went to his office and slipped on his headphones. If his eyes continued to slip towards his blond fellow every so often nobody made a note of it.

---H/C---

This was one of the few places in the hospital he felt he could get away from them. He wasn't so much away from them as he was turning his back on them.

He'd take what he could get.

Back to the hospital, face to the world, eyes to the sky, he almost felt like he could fly. A little crazy bit of him urged him to push of the ledge on which he sat and just let the wind take him. The rest of him knew that gravity would get him long before the wind would. He quelled the urge to raise his arms to the side as well, spread them as though he really could soar with the birds and ghosts. He didn't need Cameron and Foreman thinking that he was nuts as well as suicidal. The two were not mutually exclusive.

"You're not going to jump are you?"

"Not really in the mood to break my legs today, so no."

Wilson came closer. He stayed on his side of the brick barrier separating his half of the balcony from the diagnostics department half. Well it wasn't really half. More one to two, but there were more people in the diagnostics department than resided in his one little office, so the per capita the division of balcony space was in Wilson's favour.

"Just making sure," Wilson said dubiously. He took a gander over the edge of the balcony, reassuring himself that the fall wouldn't be fatal should Chase slip, though he seemed fairly stable, in regard to his perch on the balcony. He wasn't sure if it was fair to the rest of them to call a man who sat on a balcony parapet with his feet dangling over the edge, stable. Eyes up to the cloudy sky, Chase didn't have a mind for the possible danger he was in nor the looks he was getting from those next to, behind, and below him.

A chilly breeze made Wilson shiver, the last vestiges of winter valiantly trying to maintain it's hold on the area. The new season was already at work and the pleasant days were crisp but still comfortable. A little too cool to be without a jacket, which made Wilson wish he'd had the foresight to bring his out with him as Chase had.

"What exactly are you doing out here?"

Chase shrugged, smiling up at a passing bird. It was nice to forget people –forget that there were people hurting each other, annoying each other, killing, maiming, destroying, sometimes merely for the sport they found in it. He kicked his legs at little, his heels tapping against the brick. The motion had Wilson suppressing a strong urge to grab Chase and pull him down. He was pretty sure that none of House's fellows had actually committed suicide because of him, but he didn't exactly keep track of what happened to the old ones, none of whom had lasted as long as the current three. He noticed Chase wince as he rolled his right shoulder

"Sports injury?" The oncologist inquired. Chase seemed the type to be physically active outside work.

"I don't think so. It's just been hurting –days now. It's getting worse too. Like I've been carrying something heavy for miles." He brought his opposite hand across his front to rub and the sore spot. The handsome features pinched in discomfort as he tried to work the pain out with a hand unskilled in the art of massage.

"Get down from there! How old are you –two? I shouldn't have to tell you when you're doing something stupid!" House's sudden appearance startled both of the men, thankfully not enough to have Chase falling the several feet to the ground.

"Are you trying to make him fall?" Wilson asked, holding his hands out just in case Chase lost his balance while he worked himself back over to the sane side of the balcony.

"What the hell is with you?" House demanded.

Chase shrugged, only with his let shoulder, and answered, "Nothing that concerns you."

The older blue eyes narrowed. "Inside," he ordered.

"Do we have a case?" Because that was the only way he was going back in there until he could leave at quitting time.

"Yup."

Both Chase and Wilson were suspicious but it was hard not to be suspicious of House. Chase walked past to get back to inside, taking off his jacket once he was in the heated building. House eyed him as he went. "How long has his shoulder been bothering him?"

"He said a few days." Wilson watched House's crafty eyes take in the young man as he moved and felt his stomach sink. "He's not your patient."

"He's my employee. I can poke and prod him all I want."

"House, don't."

"Just watch me." He entered his small department, hearing Wilson hop the barrier to follow as well. House gave a whistle while he collected some books. He had his fellows well trained. When he whistled they came, annoyed as they might have been by the method of summon. "Chase," he addressed then handed the man a text. Surprised and confused Chase didn't have time to get a god grip on the heavy hardback before he was handed another, and another, and more still, until he had a fair sized stack of heavy medical texts.

"What is this? A demonstration?" Foreman asked.

House shushed him and watched Chase trying to keep the books from falling. His left arm was carrying most of the added weight. His right was just adding a little extra steadying support. House added one more thing to the top of the stack. From the corner of his eye he could see Cameron's eyes getting wide as his precious Gameboy was placed at the top of the pile. Should it fall with these text books there was a fair chance that it would be damaged. It was a risk he was willing to take since he knew his subordinates would do a great deal to make sure that didn't happen, lest they incur his wrath.

"Don't drop it," House warned. Wide, uncertain eyes looked back at him and House smirked, liking the look. Without explanation he reached out and loosened the neatly made tie at Chase's neck. Instinctively Chase tried to move away from the touch but the stack of ill-balanced books and the precious device on top made it impossible.

"Careful," warned the older man.

"House, what are you doing?" Cameron asked this time. When House picked on them it always seemed to get out of hand. He always went too far. It was pretty clear that something was going on in Chase's head and she thought it best to tread with caution. House obviously did not agree.

While Chase tried to jostle the objects to one arm and move away from his boss, his boss reached out and undid the top few buttons of his shirt.

"House!" That outraged and shocked cry was definitely Wilson but House didn't spare him a look. He hooked one finger over the collar at the right side of Chase's neck and yanked, exposing the skin over his right shoulder. All the outrage died then, except for Chase's, as a blotchy patch of deep, purple bruising was displayed.

"That has to hurt. Those books probably aren't helping. You might want to refrain from heavy lifting for a while."

"Chase, what happened?"

Trying to keep his face away from the hand holding wide his shirt but still wanting to see exactly what was there, Chase strained his neck and his eyes. The bruising was new to him. All he could say to answer Wilson's question was "that wasn't there this morning."

"How heavy is that bag you carry around?" Foreman asked as he took the Gameboy and a couple of books from Chase before his quivering left arm dropped it all.

"The bruising is too big to be his bag," House informed, wondering if Chase had some disorder that was choosing now to make itself known.

"It goes further," Cameron stated. She stood on her toes to get a better look and could see that the mottled pattern of damaged flesh continued both on the back and front of his shoulder.

"Your rugby buddies are getting too rough. You might want to play with the girls."

"I haven't played in months. Winter and all."

"Any other unexplained bruising?" House asked taking the last text book from his fellow and watching the tenseness slip away as the load was removed.

"No. Only this." Chase looked down at his shoulder and poked only to remove his hand when the pain flared. "I must have… hit something."

"And not noticed?" Foreman questioned. Yes, Chase had been a touch spacey as of late but even he would have noticed if something struck his shoulder with enough force to bruise like that.

"It's nothing."

"You should get an X-ray to check for any breaks in your clavicle," Cameron suggested.

He righted and re-buttoned his shirt. "I said, it's nothing. Probably just slept funny."

"Must have been hilarious," House scoffed, apparently willing to drop the subject. The other's followed suit. Chase adjusted his tie while his mind continued to wonder about the unexplained injury. He hadn't slept funny. He'd slept the same way he usually did –lying down on a bed, like most people. The pain had been with him for three days. At first it was just an ache –didn't change when he moved or did anything –so he continued with his business. It was only today that it started to interfere with him. That morning he'd tried to lift a heavy case of old text books into the closet he used as storage, but his right shoulder had protested violently and not quieted much in the following hours.

That night he'd go home and examine the injury in the mirror. It extended onto his right shoulder blade, over the shoulder, and down to his clavicle; an odd pattern of bruising since he hadn't carried anything heavy over his shoulder. He prodded a little more at the dark patches. He searched but didn't find anything similar anywhere else, no tenderness, no discolouration. Whatever it was only appeared to affect his right shoulder. Strange, but no stranger than his life had ever been.

---H/C---

Foreman poked his head outside the door of exam room two and glanced around. He was doing his clinic hours, easing worries when ailments weren't serious and providing reassurance when they were. He was on his seventh patient, making good time but he needed a second opinion. His eyes quickly picked out the blond head of his colleague and he figured Chase's opinion was as good as anyone's, so he called. Chase slowly turned away from the empty space at which he'd been glaring and glared at Foreman, who cocked his head at the irritated expression.

"Uh…consult?"

"I don't know. You called me."

Foreman shook his head, eyes on the ceiling. "No. I mean would you come here for one." He wasn't sure if Chase was choosing to be purposely obtuse, but he wouldn't be surprised if it was just Chase being blond.

The younger man continued to eye him for a long moment and Foreman nearly retracted the consult request when Chase began to walk over.

"There's some rigidity on palpitation of her lower right quadrant and some rebound tenderness. You're the internal medicine expert I figured…"

"Did you figure appendicitis?"

Of course he'd figured appendicitis and his response, an emphatic "Yes," said as much. "But it's all non-specific it could be any number of other things."

"Then book an ultrasound," Chase responded impatiently and was about to walk away without seeing the patient. Foreman grabbed the belt at the back of his lab coat and dragged him into the room.

"Ten seconds, Chase." He directed the Aussie to the woman who was lying on the examination bed. Standing next to her was another woman, significantly younger. Probably the patient's daughter. Both women wore a hijab, the head-garb worn by many women of Islamic faith. The veils on both covered their heads but left their faces open. The younger woman's gaze lingered on the even younger man the black doctor had dragged in. When she'd argued and asked for a second opinion, she'd hoped Dr. Foreman would get an older, more experienced physician. This boy was younger than her little brother and her little brother was not all that mature.

"This is Doctor, Chase. I've asked him—" Foreman didn't get any further before the patient, the older woman started to panic and speak hurriedly in what Foreman assumed was Arabic. Her dark eyes were wide and scared as she stared at the new comer. The daughter attempted to calm her mother speaking in both the foreign language her mother had fallen into and in English. Foreman and Chase approached wondering what had set her off but the woman nearly fell off the bed as she tried to move away.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong," the younger woman apologized.

"Iblis!" The sudden shriek startled them all! The older woman, her eyes bright with the fear and trained directly on the blond man that had just joined them. "Iblis!"

Chase knew when he should go. The yelling drew a passing doctor and nurse into the exam room. In the fracas they barely noticed his absence, their attention focused on the woman who was still panicking and yelling.

"She called you the devil!" That was the first thing out of Foreman's mouth when he returned to the diagnostics rooms. Cameron looked up from the laptop in front of her but Chase didn't even turn his head away from his crossword.

"Who? Chase?"

Foreman nodded, a smile at the sur-reality of it all pulling his face. His rather loud statement attracted the attention of their boss who had been looking over a set of X-rays that Cuddy demanded he look at to confirm or deny a diagnosis made by another physician in the hospital. Chase being called the devil was apparently more important to him than a possible case of osteomalacia.

"A clinic patient I had." Foreman glanced at House who was walking into the conference room but didn't pause in his narration of the recent events. "She sees him and starts freaking out, calling him 'Iblis' and speaking in Arabic."

"Farsi."

Three sets of eyes look to the man who hadn't appeared to be listening and still wasn't looking anywhere but his puzzle.

"What?"

"She was speaking Farsi, not Arabic. Get your languages straight."

Foreman glanced at the other two Doctor's who were also surprised by the outburst. It was more heated than a lot of the comments Chase made, considering many of them had been pretty goofy in the past. Still, the barb wasn't as sharp as it could have been but the tone was severe.

"He's just cranky because somebody didn't like his hair," House taunted. Chase apparently didn't feel like playing with him. He filled in another set of squares in his puzzle and ignored the three people that were still wondering and silently eying him.

Cameron and Foreman quickly found something else to occupy their interests though a few curious glances were directed at their stony critical-care specialist. House remained standing, despite what it did to his leg. Something was up with Chase and House wanted to know more.

---H/C---

Several thousand miles away…

She didn't mind that he was ignoring her. He'd always been self-centered –childishly so –which complicated his duties. "You need to go to him."

A large, powerful hand turned the page of his novel with a gentle touch and motion. It belied the strength of his limbs but the grace and perfectly measured motions, even just to turn a page, told a trained eye that those limbs were fast and deadly. "He's not my problem anymore."

She tsk-ed him and shook her head. "He's always your problem. He's the only real thing you've ever had, or ever will."

He remained outwardly unperturbed as he responded. "I wouldn't expect someone wearing a habit to condone such a relationship."

She just smiled. She was pretty…fairly pretty…maybe. With her hair and the rest of her head hidden under the white and black dress of a catholic nun, it was hard for him to tell. It had been a long time since he'd seen her and he wasn't interested in flipping through his memories to compare then and now. He supposed based on her face she was attractive enough. A cruel part of him would delight in making her outer beauty better match her inner.

"It's not for me to judge."

"How noble of you," he relented acerbically and bent his head back to his book. She wasn't done with him yet though. The lavishly decorated condominium overlooking the Sydney harbour had been a nice, quiet, peaceful place to enjoy the latest John Grisham novel until the nosy woman in the black clothing had invaded. Apparently there was nothing wrong with breaking and entering in her bible. Then again he'd known her before she'd been adopted by the church and he couldn't help thinking _once a slut, always a slut_.

Then again, they'd never gotten along really well, as one might have figured out.

"Warren, my dear, you're not really going to abandon him to them. You tried that once already and you still haven't recovered."

He slammed the book shut and stood to tower over her, backing up his glare with his formidable stature. "Get out, Sister!"

Maybe it was the mistaken faith that God would save her should something happen, which leant her the strength to face him and not even take a step back. Warren was willing to bet what little he had that if he tossed her out the window, the twenty-two stories up that they were, God wouldn't save her before she hit the ground.

"You might want to curb those violent thoughts. Giving in to them would be pretty low, even for you," she said with a smile up at him.

"You better get out of my face," he threatened as the wealth of history between them welled up. He'd been ignoring his history for seven years now and, in doing so, he'd become a shell of the barely-living person that he had been.

"You better get to Robbie before they do. You'll never forgive yourself if you don't. You know that this cycle is the most important. You wouldn't make him face this one alone too."

His right hand fisted and shook with an urge he was holding back. Well aware of the reaction she was causing the young nun stepped closer and tilted her head back to stare up at him. "Even you can imagine that he's managed to forgive you in seven years. And I know you won't believe me, but he forgave you seven years ago." When he gave no response she smiled and went for the exit.

"I won't help you."

"Help him. He's going to need his protector."

He let her leave and remained standing for several minutes after her departure. She couldn't know that he'd debated with himself every morning he awoke with an empty heart, whether he should seek out the one person who had ever been able to give him any peace.

He walked away from the small sitting area that faced the beautiful landscape of Sydney, abandoning his book. He'd found refuge in literature for the past several years. He could concern himself with someone else's life and wrap his mind around their worries, forgetting his own. Today he abandoned the peaceful solitude of prose and poetry for the real world, a real quest, and a real promise that he'd first broken and then ignored for too long.

Even with only the resolution was in his mind, he felt some deep part of himself waking up and humming with renewed spirit.

He picked up the phone and dialled a friend and ally.

"Hi, Edie. This is Warren Mayes. I need some information…"

"Princeton, New Jersey," came the quick response as though she'd been anticipating this for sometime. He didn't bother asking how she knew. Edie was just like that sometimes.

"United States, huh? He ran far."

"Nowhere is far enough. And might I say, it's about damn time."

Warren chose not to respond to that. It was true and he felt rather foolish when it was pointed out to him so bluntly. "I'll head out there."

"It's a long flight. Might want to bring some good books."

"I think I'll stick with the in-flight movies."

---H/C---

Chase verbally squirmed his way out of joining Cameron and Foreman at a nearby bar for drinks. He wasn't sure what made them extend the offer but he wasn't interested in whatever blight of charity they'd felt inclined to bestow on him that day. They probably thought he needed to unwind. He wasn't fool enough to think they hadn't noticed his tension no matter how badly he wished they hadn't. Unfortunately, it was becoming too hard to hide. The constant imposition of the spectres into his vision and his life was drawing his attention and his worry. He'd started to zone out, focussing on the figments and images. He made sure he was always occupied when at work so that it wouldn't happen there, but at home sometimes it lasted hours, and he had little control over it. He didn't understand why, on this cycle, the rules had changed. He assumed that he must be somehow sick in the head to be exploring these new rules, finding their limits. He wasn't quite crazy enough to start pushing at them just yet.

Today he'd spent a rather enjoyable afternoon talking with a resident of the fifth floor after following a curious figure there. He'd probably never see her again as she was scheduled to be transferred to a sanatorium once she had recovered from her physical illness. Besides the mild infection that brought her to the hospital she'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia, a broken mind. After talking to her Chase agreed with the diagnosis but wondered if perhaps her mind wasn't broken but was instead seeing pieces she wasn't meant to see. That was the source of the "paranoid" part of her diagnosis as it read in her file, but she was right to be paranoid. The things she could see, the things Robert could see, the things nobody else could see, they saw her too.

Like a ship lost at sea and only a single star to guide it, these strange things were drawn to her, and to him. He couldn't close the door to these things–didn't know how and wasn't sure if it was even possible. All he could do was tell her that he saw them too. With those few words he'd returned to her a small piece of her sanity and respect, and watched in wonderment as the miserable woman really looked at him and found herself in what she considered to be very good company, for more than one reason. (She was crazy, not blind.) She'd smiled and a modicum of peace was found in her otherwise splintered mind.

"Sometimes…sometimes we look too hard and miss it," she'd whispered to him, her chapped lips close to his ear. "Those pretty things and the way home. Sometimes you have to stop fighting."

Now, back in the conference room, seated far from her and her unsettling confidence, Chase couldn't dispel her words from his mind. Neither could he forget the teasing tone of her smile. He might be the sane one but she was the one who understood, in her own way. A faint apparition to her left had slipped into sight for a brief stretch of seconds. Vague, indiscreet Robert was hard pressed to say how he knew what he knew at that moment, but it was her. That ghostly figure that sat next to the schizophrenic woman that many would write off as beyond hope, at her side was herself; a copy made of luminescent ether, which slipped back into her, through her clothing and her skin on the next breath. And she was trapped again.

"Angelica," he breathed her name. Short dark hair, thin as a wraith, eyes splendid like a virtue. He wanted to save her. He felt compelled to, but he couldn't heal a broken mind no matter what he thought might be trapped inside.

Chase went back to his newspaper, the company he'd chosen over that of his two colleagues. He finished the article he'd been reading before his wandering thoughts had taken him on a trip to the previous afternoon. There was a picture with the article. It showed a group of people, heavily armed people. It was a war-zone that had once been a peaceful neighbourhood. On the right side of the image there was a man in the second row. Even in black and white, what little of his clothing that could be seen between the shoulders, arms and rifles of the first row, looked old and dusty. And his eyes burned with something sinister and familiar, and Chase wasn't sure which side was influencing him, there was never any way for him to tell but given the title of the article: "The day of massacres" and the man's company, Chase could guess.

He circled the man's head numerous times with his blue pen then returned the pen to his mouth where his bad habit had become almost a nervous tick. He flipped to the next section of the newspaper and was dismayed to find more familiar stories about people he'd never heard of and never met, in person. He'd been in their heads, or at least next to them. He'd heard the whispers in their ears and the whispers in their mind. And suddenly he was hearing them again.

A crime, they had just committed one. There was a middle aged man and a young child bleeding in a small, usually quiet store somewhere, one bullet each lodge in their flesh. A truck sped away, the two occupants in the dingy cab high from the recent event and from the moderate funds they'd stolen from the store. Lights whizzed past, trees, benches, other cars, other people, blurred in the periphery while the voices more than the number of assailants, the number of remorseless criminals currently occupying the vehicles, spoke over each other.

"I told you…"

"…so easy…"

Something somewhere broke. Tears fell. Families were plunged into mourning. Failed again and fled to fail once more. This time only a law of man was broken. A red light –it had been amber a moment ago, and green before that. They weren't going to stop.

A flash of a familiar face.

"Stop," Chase implored in a whisper.

A small, sporty, red car entered the intersection. Wide blue eyes, so much blood, a brown brief case on the pavement, sprinkled with broken glass.

"Chase!"

A bright white light burned his eyes and he flinched away from it. Or he would have but there was a firm grip on his jaw.

"Wha…"

"Hold still. You just had an absence seizure."

Chase still tried to turn his head away from the light. When that wasn't allowed he closed his eyes. "A what?"

"I'm not going to get into the clinical description with you. Suffice it to say I've been trying to get your attention for the past twenty seconds, and none too politely." House tried to continue his examination but the patient, now "back", was being uncooperative. If he held on much tighter he'd leave bruises on the younger man's jaw if he wasn't already. "Stop squirming!"

Chase froze. House did too. He hadn't really expected that to work.

Blue-green eyes flew open and regarded the man knelt in front of him. "Y…you're still here."

"At least one of us is happy I'm doing overtime," House muttered. "Follow the light." He began moving his pen light side to side but his patient wasn't interested.

"That's yours?"

"Does it matter?" House said in aggravation. Chase was starting to spook him. He had a list of the odd symptoms his intensivist had been displaying lately. It was a short list, but that he had a list at all was saying something. Seizures and general fussiness might have to be added to it.

"Is it yours?" Chase demanded, sounding desperate and House sat back a little to assess the situation. He glanced to his left where the old, brown leather brief case had landed when he'd rushed to the unresponsive man's side. A friend had given it to him. A gift for something and House had never intended to use it. Then he'd been cursed with paperwork and the once useless gift had a purpose, though one it was rarely brought out for.

"Yeah, it's mine," House responded, still observing the other man. "You ever had a seizure before? Because that's the type of thing that should be in your personnel file."

"It wasn't a seizure."

"How do you know?"

"Because I remember what happened." The image of the light brown leather bag changed to a dark road, broken glass and blood. He blinked and the frightful vision was gone.

"Chase…" House drawled, unsure what had caused the increase in breathing rate.

"You can't drive home!"

House wasn't quite following so he went with what was obvious. "Well I can't fly home and I'm not staying here. Or is this your way of offering me a ride, you minx."

"I'm not joking! There's…" he wasn't sure how to describe it. He wasn't sure if it was even going to happen. It was more than likely nothing. The newspaper that was lying on the floor and the papers from days past were evidence that what he'd seen might happen, just like the things he'd seen happened around the world and were printed on paper as chilling proof.

"Chase you need to calm down."

Chase shook his head. Eyes closed tight he tried to recall details of the unclear images that had slipped through his mind. "A street…an intersection. The light's red. You stopped. You're in the left lane. You want to go straight." He was struggling to grasp any more than that and he knew it wasn't going to be enough. Before House could say anything, probably tell him he was loosing it (which Chase already knew) Chase spoke again. "''Do'! The street sign says 'Do'!" The small placard was barely lit by the streetlight and there was deep darkness all around it but the letters were sharp and they spelt D and O. "When you get there. You have to stop. Even when the light turns green don't go. They're going to come…they'll…" the eyes that had begun to stare through and unnerve House closed as Chase wrestled with the final outcome of what he'd seen. "You just have to wait."

House wasn't sure what was going on. "So…when I get to 'Do', don't. That's what you're telling me?"

Chase nodded, eyes still closed, a shaky hand wiping the perspiration that dotted the slope of his upper lip. House was understandably sceptical. He was a man of science. He liked things taken apart, proven and brushed to the side. Mysteries were only good if they could be understood and solved. He hated mysteries. He liked solving them. This wasn't making any sense and his employee was looking worse with each passing minute. His leg was also beginning its song of protest, the kneeling being just a bit too much for him.

"Just…just count to five. That's all." Tremulous hands slipped through blond hair then fisted in the strands in a grip that was mildly painful. The anxiety, the excitement that maybe he might be able to change something was playing a number on his nerves and spinning the gears in his head too fast for words to keep up. He tried to take steadying breaths but they only made his lungs burn more and his heart beat faster. The collar of his shirt was suddenly too tight and the room was too warm. House was too close to him and the touch on his arm was uncomfortable. He stumbled quickly away from it.

He rose too quickly or perhaps it was the effect of the last few minutes, but his head was floating for a second before the weight of his body crashed down again, almost taking him to the floor.

House lunged for him, having seen the unstable motions. He nearly tripped onto his face in his hurry to get over the chair from which Chase had just sprung. His cane was still lying on the carpet where he had placed it when he'd begun to examine his fellow and was of no use to him now out his hand. He missed the days when simple things like walking were overlooked pleasures.

By some minor grace, House managed to keep them both upright, though the glass wall of the conference room probably deserved most of the credit. House practically had Chase pinned to the transparent partition, not that Chase, in his mind's state of upheaval, noticed right away. The older man barely stayed balanced with his left forearm pressed against the cool material and his other arm wrapped around the trim waist of Dr. Chase.

"I have to find them," Chase intoned dimly, still not all there yet. He was clearly still disturbed by whatever he'd claimed to have seen and House was reluctant to let him go even when he felt Chase shift away from him and start supporting his own weight. Beyond his suspicion and the annoyance over his inability to keep up entirely with whatever Chase was thinking, he also didn't want to loose the moment's intimacy. The warmth of Chase's body, the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest brushing against House's own, the fit of his form into the hollows of a happily lonely man's, even the smell of his hair and House was surprised to feel his grip resettle around the man he reluctantly admitted to be worried about.

He'd noticed the recent change in Chase. It was only a minor deviation at first, following the incident of House's fist and Chase's jaw. Something had dimmed from the keen eyes and House almost apologized. Then the months wore on and once his personal and legal problems began to dissipate he'd noticed that the tiny world of the diagnostics department had changed without the grand master being aware. Chase's changes had continued and now he was acting positively weird.

"…have to find them…" the dazed whispered was followed by a renewed battle to escape the hold on him. Chase's mind was elsewhere until a gentle touch to his face smoothed out the tense expression and brushed away small parts of the sudden unrest.

The hand was different but the touch, the sentiment was so familiar that Chase almost leaned into it. He really wanted to. He needed that comfort, that reassurance but he couldn't make that mistake again. Could he? He wanted to be strong enough to face this alone but as he faltered it was a simple touch, simple warmth that brought him back. The solace was almost worth the risk.

House was again caught by the surprising contentment he found in this his next exploration of touching Chase; a thumb tracing the sweep of a cheek and his fingers gently brushing through the soft hair just above his ear. It was so smooth, and it figured Chase would feel as pretty as he looked. He'd only meant to try and focus Chase's attention on him, get a look at his eyes and gauge his pupils but instead, some questions he'd had were answered. House wasn't sure how long he'd wondered but he didn't have to anymore.

The moment broke as Chase finally forced his way out of the hug; House letting him go after a brief physical debate. He stared at his boss as though he'd never seen him before and House stared back unperturbed and seemingly perfectly at peace with the brief contact. Of course _he_ wouldn't see anything wrong with it. A world of black and white, do it or don't; Chase didn't understand how such a complex person found a life in the simple world he'd made. If it felt right, he did it, to hell with the consequences and the barriers that were shattered in the course of his whim.

"Count to five when the light turns green," he repeated. He wanted House and his confusingly simple world to be around tomorrow. He wasn't sure if telling House of the possible consequences would convince him to do as he had instructed. House seemed the type to try and take his life in his hands and do something stupid if only to prove to himself that the only forces that existed were the ones in science textbooks.

With nothing more to say and so much to do at that moment Chase made his exit. He had so little to go on and there were more than a few convenience stores in Princeton and Plainsboro. He planned on finding a map and a phone book and calling as many stores as possible in the hopes that something would click and someone would be saved.

House remained leaning against the glass for a minute or two after Chase fled. He was now more certain than ever that Chase needed some help. Whether medical or psychiatric, House wasn't sure. He retrieved his cane and his briefcase and went back to his office, back to his list. Weight loss, moodiness, anxiety, bruising –those were the fairly concrete symptoms. He might be able to add absence seizures to it as well. There were the other more subtle changes in Chase's behaviour that House had observed, such as staring off into crowds or his eyes shifting as though watching the currents of air in a room.

Perhaps it was stress. Maybe the people and hospital were finally chipping more substantially away at that near-unflappable calm. Chase wasn't a social butterfly at the hospital, wasn't as popular as most would expect him to be. Actually, Chase was someone many staff loved to hate. Whether it was because of that long ago affair with Vogler, the temporary evil-overseer of the hospital, or over the recent events with Detective Tritter, that House knew Chase was still taking heat over even though he hadn't done anything, he wasn't sure. Equally likely, perhaps more likely was the fact that Chase was nothing like one would expect him to be upon first meeting him.

Robert was handsome (though House thought 'pretty' was a better adjective), had great hair and a killer smile that only rarely was seen. More often it was the plain, contrived smile he used on clinic patients that people saw. It was no secret that Chase came from money. Doctor Rowan Chase was a well known man. So given what was available for judgement one would have easily expected Rowan's son to be stuck up and conceited, and the romantics would have wanted to get to know Robert and realize that he was actually a sweet, jovial guy. Unfortunately he wasn't. Robert Chase was a very guarded individually, something that only became apparent when a person took the time to study what they knew of the Australian doctor. They quickly found they knew very little, and that what they did know was hearsay and conjecture.

His understated personality and general indifference were often mistaken as haughtiness and uncaring self-absorption. And either Chase didn't notice or he didn't care to change the reputation. It shouldn't have surprised House that the very reasons that he'd hired Chase were the same ones that made someone who could easily charm the pants off everyone (literally), so decidedly unpopular.

House liked his anomalies. When it came to hiring fellows as long as they met his definition of smart and not quite normal they were in. Foreman, the straight-laced doctor with the criminal record; Cameron, the beauty queen who always chose the hard way; Chase, the Prince Charming who could have been but wasn't. But House thought had he'd figured Chase out, pieced together his back story and discerned his motives. Perhaps it was boredom that had caused him to take a second look, or maybe it was guilt that he'd thought he'd figured Chase out and figured him wrong. The result was that House found he knew less than he conservatively would have estimated he'd known.

What House did know was that if Chase ever discovered the depth of his meddling he'd be in trouble. There was nothing Chase seemed to hate more than when his boss interfered with his personal life. It was almost enough that House wished he hadn't requisitioned a copy of Chase's medical file from Australia –almost but not quite. He'd have some interesting bed-time reading tonight.

---H/C---

House did love the sound of his car. It didn't bother him in the least that it had been paid for with mob money. Perhaps he just had a lacking social conscience or just didn't bother to dwell on the things that couldn't be changed. Bad things happened and most people were powerless to do anything about it. No point getting huffy and teary and snotty over it. So it wasn't his ride bothering him as he made his way home in the dim glow of the last throws of twilight.

The further he travelled from the hospital, the more he could hear Chase's ardent request ringing in his ears. He didn't need to be told that Chase thought something terrible was going to happened to him if he didn't count to five when he got to "Do" street. What he couldn't ignore was the pounding of his own heart as he passed intersection after intersection. He didn't want to, but he always scanned for a street named Do and laughed at himself when at each stop he didn't find it.

A red light snuck up on him and House swore it had been green a blink ago. He managed to stop in time and shook his head. There was nobody around. He could have run the light and not been caught. His law abiding nature had done him in again. He sat back in his seat willing to wait for the green light just this once. Opening his eyes after a longer than necessary blink, House's eyes fell upon the sign across the road from him.

Dover. Well it begins D-O but that didn't count. He shook his head and just as he was going to look away –already impatient with the light that hadn't changed –the wind that he hadn't noticed was blowing, stopped. The faint howl outside his car vanished and an eerie silence descended. A scrawny tree with newly budded leaves swayed back to its upright position and its small, bright green leaves, dark green in the low light, partially covered the street name. The last three letters were gone. Do Street.

The light turned green.

The car that had pulled up behind him honked, startling House of his stupor. Automatically he raised his foot off the brake and raised a finger to the driver behind him. The car inched forward, the idling engine still giving enough power to move the vehicle. Suddenly the little red car stopped and the driver behind honked again.

He began to count. Just as he finished saying "two" a swift vehicle, shrouded in shadow, whipped through the intersection, its loud engine a quickly passing rumble, like ominous thunder. A blink and he would have missed it. With both his eyes open all he'd been able to make out was that the vehicle was a dark truck and that there was a passenger. He finished counting to five, mostly on autopilot. The rest of his mind was contemplating the possibilities, the fate that might have just been avoided.

The car behind him had stopped honking.

---H/C---

**End Chapter 2**

Sagga...


	4. Past Imperfect

Pairing(s): Chase/OMC, House/Chase

Warning(s): Language, Adult Situations, Violence, M/M relationships. Do not read this story if any of these bother you!

Spoilers: Up to season 4 Finale.

A/N: Check out my livejournal for some pics of who I envisioned playing the new characters (Use "Homepage" link at my profile). I'll update the list and pictures as the story progresses. Thanks for reading.

Chapter Rating: PG-13

**Chapter 3: Past Imperfect**

The next morning Chase arrived to the hospital later than usual. He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and his day had started very slowly. By the time he got to the hospital. He was feeling more human and that was probably due to the cups of coffee he'd downed before driving to work. He hadn't the gall or the guts to turn on the television and check the local news. After a late night trying without luck to help to absolute strangers, he didn't want to hear about the agony his failure had caused.

He parked and made his way to diagnostics, refusing to believe that this day would be any different than the other insignificant ones that had passed before. It was his delusion. Like all the others it kept him going, kept his minimal life running until those days when actuality broke it and he struggled to keep what was left together.

"You're late."

Rare were the days when the real world and world he imagined were in sync. That's why when House greeted him with a comment about his tardiness, he was almost dazed. House was alive!

The initial shock evaporated and though the delight would have come quickly on its heels, dismay crashed down on his elevating mood. He sat heavily in the nearest chair, eyes still wide but tinged with horror as he came to a realization. The realization that what he saw didn't have to happen. He could change it if he tried hard enough. But there was always so little, a glimpse and peek here and, of course, the outside forces that continued to work their sinister magic. He didn't know why he was being tortured like this.

Daily he and all doctors were faced with the limits and short comings of their profession –attempting to hold together the pieces when bodies and minds started to fall apart, and after people had done horrible things to each other. Now it was as though Chase was being asked to fix and prevent those horrible things. To do what no one person could ever possibly, successfully do. This was just torment, and it would tear any person apart. Robert had asked many times, mostly to himself and never received an answer. Why? Why him? What had he done?

The clink of porcelain on glass precipitated a short shiver out of him. Chase eyed the mug placed before him and the hand that was moving away from it. The talented, crafty hand that he assumed had brought it to him. Following the hand to the arm then skipping to the unshaven face, he found intense eyes regarding him in return.

"Drink it," was the order handed down. "I even made it the way you like it."

Chase didn't really like coffee. House knew that. He also knew that Chase would drink a gallon of it if it promised to wake him up and let him continue to do his job. There just had to be cream and sugar in it. Otherwise, if it was plain, black coffee, he'd pull a face that made Cameron smirk and Foreman call him a baby.

Chase sipped it cautiously. He didn't pull a face. House went back to the coffee maker and made a cup the way he liked it. While he was stirring the concoction –wondering how to broach the subject he was sure Chase didn't want to talk about but that had to be discussed –he shrugged. Tact was never his thing and these three had forgiven him for it; and if not forgiven, at least accepted that he wasn't going to change –old dog, new tricks and all that.

"So how come you haven't won the lottery yet?"

With his back to the three fellows, he knew they couldn't determine to whom he was referring. He might be picking on Cameron. She did play the lottery. Said she'd donate the majority of any money she won to charities, and House had ridiculed her and then asked to get ten percent of whatever she won, even if he didn't deserve it. He still wasn't sure why she'd agreed but the extra two dollar he'd gotten from her twenty dollar win a few months back had gone to a worthy cause: The Get House Drunk Charity.

Foreman didn't play the lottery, even when the NJ Mega Millions got to those astronomical amounts that had people lining up for their one in a billion chance of winning. He quoted the stats and sat firmly on them in his refusal to play. House thought it was very fitting, very Foreman. Going with the stats, going with the logic. It made him a good, if somewhat predictable doctor, which was a good thing since his field dealt with a place where you didn't want to screw up. Yet House knew that his methods would also hold him back. Unlike Cameron, Foreman would never bank on the small possibilities, and unlike Chase had only a weak instinct for the obscure and when to bet on it. He wondered how Foreman would react when he bet at the wrong time, or when he didn't bet at all.

So, two people wondered if House was picking on them again, their time in the rotation of House's fleeting interest having come around. The other two people knew to whom the question was addressed and it wasn't in it's usual context. Chase played the lottery regularly. Once a month (twice if there was a really big pot to be won) when a small group of ICU staff bought tickets together. They'd have to share a win but as a group they had more chances of winning. Chase played unenthusiastically and House had to wonder why he played at all. The one time the small group had won anything House had watched Chase take the ten dollars and nonchalantly deposit it into the depressing donation box near the clinic doors which reminded the people coming and leaving that no matter how sick they were, the kids with cystic fibrosis trumped them.

Now it appeared that Chase could win the lottery all by himself. That's what House would do anyway. Well, that and be more of a know-it-all than he was already. Wouldn't it be grand if he could tell Cuddy what colour bra and panties she was going to wear the day before she wore them? Until then, he might have to leave such predictions up to Chase.

"That really was a neat trick you pulled last night." House turned and skewered Chase with his gaze, leaving no doubt in the others to whom he was speaking. They all looked at Chase who sipped his coffee rather than answering. His mind probably should have been racing, trying to figure out a way to deflect the comment, but it was blank. At that moment his thoughts went no deeper than the slightly lacking amount of sugar in his beverage.

Cameron's mind, however, was as sharp as ever. "What trick?"

"You should have seen it. After you two left," House said walking to take a seat at the opposite end of the table, across from Chase, "Chase saunters in to my office, does a strip-tease, gets on his knees, and blows me." At the faintly disgusted look on Cameron's face, House had to wonder if there might be some jealousy in there as well. He couldn't help but add, "He has great technique. Took me all the way…" He looked to meets Chase's eyes and found that they were still frozen on him. After a second or two he simply took another sip from his coffee. House blinked first.

"That's just…that's uncalled for." Foreman buried himself back in his newspaper, perhaps hoping to block out the memory of yet another one of House's crass jokes with something less disturbing. He was turned the 'World' section and House wondered at the fact that Foreman preferred reports on more suicide bombings over notes on his sex-life. Go figure.

"Jealous, Foreman?" House taunted but rose and headed for his office before the dark-skinned man could think of an appropriately disgusted but not homophobic response.

While House left, inappropriately wondering about Chase's experience with men, if he had a chance with the younger man, and on every other level, wondering about the events of last night, Chase was fending off Cameron's look. There was some revulsion (like she hadn't been willing to go down on House when she had the most obvious of crushes on him) and some suspicion. Chase almost decided to lavish some details about the imaginary event, but didn't feel like breaking the silence. Once she started talking he'd never get her to let it go, and he really didn't need her on his case too.

---H/C---

Doctor James Wilson wasn't surprised to find that House was going to make a liar out of him yet again, but he was pleased. It wasn't as twisted a scenario as one might think. Dr. Wilson simply entered his office, sat at his desk and saw the other man just sitting there. He sighed knowing that he'd get up, go talk to House and not tell Cuddy, whom he'd just spoken to five seconds ago outside his office. She was looking for him. Something to do with something House had done several months ago. Wilson vaguely remembered the incident. He knows he knew about it at the time and hadn't said anything. It had been necessary at the time. Didn't negate the fact that it was immoral, perhaps somewhat illegal but it had saved a life. Those immoralities and illegalities seemed as much a part of House as his eyes, and Wilson could almost hear the voice of Cameron saying shame on him for trying to change that.

Cuddy wasn't going to find out that House was hiding on his balcony, seated on the concrete floor. Pages of paper were scattered about, presumably from the file that was resting open next to him. Both his hands held a paper each, House shifting his eyes from one to the other drawing out the evidence and trying to come up with a story that fit. One hand dropped its page and sifted through those that had been abandoned around him. It was during this search that he noticed Wilson at the glass door.

"What are you doing?" Wilson asked from the other side of the glass.

"Research."

The straight answer and the long look that followed were an invitation. House was letting him back into his little world bit by bit. James felt some relief and opened the door to join his friend in the crisp air. It was a leap for him, back into the world he'd separated himself from when he'd gone to Detective Tritter willing to testify against his best friend. In the end he'd decided not to, not that it had mattered. His actions forced Cuddy's hand, which forced House to go search for his codeine elsewhere. He'd made House desperate, worsened an already bad situation. He hadn't meant to. House was an addict and he had a talent for doing the wrong thing at the right time. Wilson had only tried to do the right thing. Still, doing the right thing didn't mean that nobody got hurt.

But House had forgiven him, apologized even. Soon they'd be back to the way things had been (maybe a bit improved if House could better manage his pain management). Wilson had lived without his best friend before he'd met House, lived without him again for several days. He realized the life of James Wilson was okay. Not perfect, not headed towards a bright future with a happy home life, and neither was Greg House's. Misery loved company and they both had their own miseries over which they commiserated (House, mockingly so on some occasions). Their friendship was a balance of sorts, House on one side, Wilson on the other. Not quite as harmonious as yin and yang, but not as diametrical as good and bad.

He didn't need House. He was a grown man and he'd find some mediocre balance on which to continue his life without House if it ever came to that. The life of James Wilson without his arrogant best-friend Greg House was a nice, quiet place to visit. But Wilson realized, crouching next to House, that it wasn't a place he wanted to live.

"Do I even want to know?"

House briefly flicked his eyes to the oncologist. There was a sharp comment on his tongue. He was ready to jab at the still seeping wound that the last few months had inflicted on their friendship. He held back. He wanted this friendship. He'd pushed it to its limit, he didn't need to keep pushing –not yet anyway.

"It's interesting reading," House commented. "Up for a consult?"

"By "consult" you mean a legal way for you to tell me private information that I'm guessing you have no right looking into?"

House raised his eyebrows.

"…yeah sure. Why not?" He couldn't be House's friend without breaking some sort of rule, law, or ethical clause. This wouldn't be the first time he'd done it, he just had to make sure they weren't caught.

House immediately handed Wilson the notes he'd been making. And Wilson wondered briefly if this was a legitimate case that House just didn't want anyone to know about. Then he read down the list. He doubted "bitchy" was a symptom he'd list for a real case. Though you never knew with House.

"Who is this?"

"Chase," House responded easily. Wilson shook his head. House always violated other people's privacy but when it came to the people around him it was usually to help, even if it was in House's maniacal way. Past the impudence and derisions usually lay some adulterated form of concern.

Half of James was wary of snooping through private records but half of him was also glad to be and glad that House seemed to have noticed the odd behaviour of Chase lately. He'd wondered and worried that House would still be holding himself at a distance to Chase after the punch. Or maybe not so much that he was causing that distance but was allowing it to exist. Chase had put the distance between them. House had allowed it, thought maybe that it was needed.

Wilson thumbed through the pages, tried not to feel guilty about it. He hadn't mentioned to anyone what had transpired that night he'd visited Chase in the patient's room. He wasn't yet sure what to make of it and had let the incident simmer in the back of his mind since Chase hadn't done anything strange since, as far as Wilson knew.

"He was born with a positive tox screen."

"Oh." Wilson did a mental double-take. "What?"

House really should stop dropping such shocking information so casually.

"Heroin and crack; Mommy indulged in too many Dragon Rocks when baby Robbie was in the oven."

Wilson didn't have anything to say to that except, "Oh my God." Even strung out druggies showed more maternal instinct than Chase's mother had. He'd seen more than a few clean themselves up for the sake of their kid, at least during the pregnancy anyway. He imagined Mrs. Chase was probably an educated woman, who knew very well how she could harm her child. She clearly hadn't cared.

"He was born premature, small for gestational age, APGAR score was three the first days after birth." House said. He didn't sound pleased, or gleeful, or amused as some of his harsher critics might have imagined that he would. There wasn't much humour to be found in children who were born already at a disadvantage. House would make jokes and be rude to a pregnant woman who was using drugs. He'd joke about the possible outcomes. Harshly, deride her and her unborn child, saying that the kid couldn't risk losing more brain cells and ending up dumber than the mother (James could still recall with perfect clarity the looks the nurse and the patient had given him after that one). But it was for a good cause in the end. If she wasn't willing to spare her kid the possible ramifications of her addiction, then House wasn't going to spare her his sharp rhetoric that so often categorized him as an uncaring human being.

House continued telling Wilson Chase's medical history. "They were worried about a cerebral infarction." Much worse a spot than the thigh.

"But he made it. He's smart. He's successful."

"He chews on pens."

Wilson didn't follow. "Okay…not the healthiest of habits…"

"But he does manage to make it very alluring doesn't he?" Wilson wasn't sure how to comment on that. Thankfully, before he could, House was speaking again. "Infants exposed to cocaine are heavy on the pacifiers. Might be something he carried over." Wilson thought about it. "Or it could just be a naughty habit," House said in a lewd tone but casual deportment. His vaguely sexually harassing comments had become so comfortable that neither he nor Wilson paid particular attention to them anymore.

"What, precisely, are you hoping to find? You weren't serious about making him your patient were you?"

House shrugged. He was looking for answers. What he'd been finding were more questions. Questions that he knew under usual circumstances he had no right to know the answers to –but his life had just been saved by what could not be labelled as anything less than precognition. Either that or a miracle and House didn't believe in miracles.

Everything had an explanation if he just looked hard enough. And Greg House was exactly the type of ingrate to look a gift horse in the mouth.

---H/C---

His cell phone was ringing and vibrating in his right pant pocket. He liked the tune, hence why he'd made it his ring-tone. It was the vibration on his thigh that made his face pull in a mild grimace. You'd think something vibrating so close to his crotch would feel nice but he couldn't seem to get used to this device. It almost tickled and it definitely surprised him. The woman to his right had noticed his start and was still giving him a strange look. Warren pulled the phone of his pocket and briefly held it up to her as an explanation for his jumpiness.

"Hello?" he answered and held the door open for the woman. She smiled her thanks at him and was willing to excuse his twitchiness and give him a second chance that he wasn't asking for. Six foot three of tall, dark and handsome usually managed to excuse him from a lot of things. Warren only had time to note her interest before he forgot about her completely. Standing just inside the glass doors of the entrance he froze.

"Mister Mayes, sorry to do this on such short notice but we require your co-operation again."

He pushed an aggravated breath out his nose before responding sharply. "Our contract has ended."

"But you never delivered the goods," the voice said quickly such that Mayes wouldn't have time to hang up. "I know you don't want to hear from us but I don't think you want us to enact our displeasure with you on your friend, Edie."

Warren took a calming breath and willed himself not to yell. He didn't want to attract undo attention even if he really wanted to beat in the face of the man on the other end of this phone call. How dare they use her to get to him. How did they even find her? She was an obscure and rather distant connection to make.

"You disappoint me," he drawled, stepping out of the way for a woman with a stroller. "I didn't think a man of God would stoop to this level."

The response was slow in coming. "There's a war coming. She'd just be an early casualty."

"Leave her alone." Obscure connection or not, a threat against one of his few remaining allies could not be taken lightly.

"I will, once I have your word. From someone like you that's not much but it's held up before."

"What do you want?" Mayes asked shortly. He didn't want to revisit the memories of what he'd done seven years ago any earlier than required. He was already about to face the single greatest reminder of his betrayal, the one he'd betrayed. He didn't need this pompous bastard too.

The voice on the other end, half a world a way was amused. The smile in the voice was shredding the last intact nerve he had. Flying always put him in a mood. "You know what we want. Just keep him under control. We'll contact you when we're ready, and you will deliver him to us."

He'd said yes to this request once before. This time he couldn't form the words. What came out instead: "Go to hell." He snapped the phone shut, his mood worsening as he thought of Edie and the roaming charges his cell-phone carrier was going to ply him with. "Bloody bonzer."

"Can I help you?" the young nurse asked of the man walking up towards her. It was easy to tell from the way he looked around that he didn't know precisely where he was going. She would be happy to direct him and maybe give him her phone number. Working in the clinic had never been so worthwhile.

"Hello, I'm looking for Robert Chase. Doctor Chase, he works here."

The nurse smiled at him enjoying the sound of his accent. She flipped through the clinic roster. "Well he's not on duty in the clinic but he works in Diagnostics. I can show you how to get there."

The dark haired man nodded his thanks at her. This hospital was so busy and large he was surprised but pleased that someone was willing to take the time to keep him from getting lost. Having all these people around was making him itchy. The sooner he got Robert and got out of there the better.

"You're looking for Chase?"

He turned to a slim woman with brown, wavy hair pulled back into a pony-tail. She wore a lab-coat over her pink shirt, grey vest and slacks.

"Yes, I am. You know him?"

She nodded and replaced the chart she'd been looking at. "I work with him. Doctor Allison Cameron." She held out her hand and he only took so as not to be rude. He quickly let go once the compulsory gesture was completed to its minimum. "Um, he's actually out right now but he should be walking in any minute," she informed, gesturing to main entrance. Cameron glanced in the direction she'd indicated checking for Chase and Foreman returning from the latest B&E House had sent them on. She stalled in turning back to the gentleman with the same accent as her colleague when she noticed her boss sitting in one of the waiting room chairs near the entrance. Brows furrowed and expression belying her confusion she turned back to the stranger.

"You can wait around here." She glanced back to House who was looking anxiously out the front doors. "I would suggest you not sit near the man with the cane," she advised.

Mayes stared over at the scruffy man with the cane and the irritated glower. "I think I'll take your advice. Thank you." He gave her a brief smile and gave another to the nurse who had offered to show him around. He took his leave of them and went to stand at the other side of the lobby from the strange older man.

Cameron turned at the sigh coming from the nurse's station. The nurse there gave her a knowing smile saying, "they sure know how to make 'em down under." Cameron didn't respond. She gave an ambiguous raise of her eyebrows, a thin-lipped smile and went back to work.

Meanwhile, Warren Mayes was settling himself against the wall to wait. There were no chairs on that side and it looked odd for one man to stand when right across the foyer from him was a row of chairs, four of them empty with a man sitting in the fifth. At first Mayes thought little of him. Despite Dr. Cameron's warnings, he was only standing away from the unknown man so that he wouldn't be drawn into a conversation he wouldn't at all be interested in having. That middle aged man was just some American bloke he'd just as well avoid.

But Warren Mayes was nothing if not a people reader. It was a gift he'd always had and though he read people quite well he didn't fancy interacting with them. A few seconds of observing the man across the foyer and Mayes hoped to never have to interact with him. Hunched over, hands on his cane, crafty eyes peering through the glass, Mayes thought this man looked like he was in his own little world. It looked like a lonely place. People passed by and didn't even notice him, though his eyes noticed too much on them. Warren watched the quick mind catalogue the interactions. His eyes narrowed and his lips pulled down into more of a frown than was there before.

He must have felt another's eyes on him, because the older man began to look around. His eyes quickly fell on Mayes who continued to stare blatantly. The man gave him a questioning look and an immature wide-eyed glare for a second. Then Mayes was dismissed from the other man's mind. The front doors had just opened and two men where walking in. One was African-American, shaved head and a goatee. The other was blond, a little shorter than the first man and clean shaven. Warren would know him anywhere and he'd never looked so good.

"I can't believe you sent us all that way just so that you could prove to Henderson that you were right," Foreman complained. Next to him Chase stood rubbing the back of his neck.

"It wasn't just for me. You wouldn't have wanted that poor man to go through an unnecessary procedure."

"It would have just been another blood test," Chase said half-heartedly. He already knew House felt no remorse for sending two highly trained individuals on what was really nothing more than an errand. Nothing he said would suddenly activate the man's conscience, assuming he had one.

"Anyway, give it to me." House held out his hand expectantly and looked from one man to the other knowing that one of them had what he wanted.

Chase turned his head and eyed Foreman, Foreman sighed. From his jacket pocket he pulled out a small plastic bag containing a flower blossom. The innocent, pretty little plant was going to play a major role in the sordid little affair House had just stumbled upon early that afternoon while he was trudging around the hospital looking for Dr. Henderson, a psychologist, and bumped into a young lady who was also looking for Henderson.

"You really shouldn't do this," Chase advised. House would usually have told him to shut up, but his last episode of Chase giving him advice had turned out really well for him.

"Why not?"

Foreman was confused. House was listening to another person –to Chase? He didn't even listen to Wilson. Why was Chase suddenly so special? Foreman had a disturbing thought. Maybe Chase really had given House a blowjob.

Chase's right hand raised to rub his eyes as if trying to clear his vision, a casual gesture that didn't go unnoticed by House.

"I…I just think it'll come back to bite you in the ass." His warning was vague and under normal circumstances it wasn't anything House would have heeded. It was the strangely distant quality to Chase's voice and the almost empty cast of his eyes that made House note Chase's words. He wouldn't follow his advice. He wasn't a believer quite yet.

"I'll keep that in mind," House said. Chase just shook his head. Not in response of House's dismissive statement. He was shaking off the weird, detachment that had suddenly come over him. When it passed he began with Foreman back to diagnostics where they could divest themselves of their jackets. They hadn't gone more than a few feet when Chase froze. Foreman who was a little ahead didn't noticed at first and walked a few more paces. House, who'd been behind, had a clear view and stopped immediately. He would be glad he did. He may not have believed what happened next if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.

Before his name was even called Chase turned to the right and was assaulted by the sight of a person he hadn't seen in many years. The dark hair was still neatly cropped in a short cut. His eyes were as vibrant and heated as they'd ever been. His jaw was smooth, free of stubble. There was a slight shadow but that had always been for as many years as Mayes had been shaving. Otherwise the face was the same. More mature, sadder in some way but still the man Chase had known all the years of his life except for the last seven.

Mayes was directly in front of him now, having crossed the distance in a few long strides. He was so happy to see Robert for himself. Alive, healthy, he doubted happy but that could come in time. For now he was simply grateful that Robert was okay. A heavy weight lifted from him and though he still felt the taint of his treachery he was now presented with the opportunity to make up for it.

Mayes continued to approach even when he began into Chase's personal space.

"Warren?" Chase wasn't sure what Mayes was doing here. He wasn't sure what side he was on.

Mayes didn't hear the question in Chase's utterance of his name. All he heard was his name from lips he'd missed and a voice he once thought he'd be happy never to hear again. It was quite the opposite. His heart lifted.

"Robin," he greeted softly. A small, awed smile touched his face and before anyone knew what was happening. The bigger man had his hands on Chase's body and his lips caught in a kiss.

Chase's eyes widened with shock and he struggled to pull away. His hands pushed against Mayes's shoulders but the man was a strong as he looked and didn't budge.

"Hey! Get away from him!" Foreman quickly came to Chase's aid seeing that the man couldn't get free himself. Mayes was just pulling away when Foreman got a hand on him. Chase wanted to warn him but Mayes was faster. His arm moved with blinding speed, shooting out and catching Foreman's by his forearm. A quick motion had the doctor's arm twisted painfully and Foreman defeated.

"Warren, let him go!" Chase demanded. Mayes still had one hand at his face. The thumb gently stroked across his cheek. Warren looked at him and Robert stared back ferociously. Finally, Mayes released Foreman who stumbled back grasping his paining shoulder. Mayes glared at him for a moment then turned back to Chase whose eyes had narrowed. Mayes almost smiled but knew Robert wouldn't appreciate his amusement at the familiar expression.

"You done?"

Mayes shrugged. His eyes roved the features of the face he still held, silently comparing them to his memories. "I guess."

"Good."

Mayes didn't see the punch coming. He definitely felt when the fist was buried briefly in his gut. Eyes wide with shock and pain, the breath forced out of him, there was little he could do to keep Chase from slipping away from him. Part of him panicked. What if he ran away and vanished like he'd done last time?

Hunched over his stomach Warren was relieved to see that Robert had only stepped out of his range, not out of his life again.

"You okay, Foreman?" Chase asked gently probing the injured joint. Foreman winced but nodded.

The injury wasn't serious, likely just some strain and some bruising.

Mayes wasn't at all apologetic though he almost threw out a fake apology if only to get the expression of disappointment off the face he'd missed. He swallowed with some difficulty and pulled up a little from his doubled position. "Okay…I deserved that…" His voice was strangled, a little choked.

"Go back to Australia, Warren. I don't want or need you here." Chase's voice was cold but his face was barely holding together. House who'd been watching the encounter from a safe distance, like everyone else with some sense, thought this was the most emotive that he'd ever seen Chase. Even when his father visited, the younger Chase had held it together. The unflappable calm that was so a part Chase's character –or maybe his defence –had faltered the most in the past few days than House had seen in the past two years. And while that was interesting, he didn't want his fellow to be completely broken, especially not while he was still in the dark about everything that was going on.

House broke the staring contest between the two Australian men by stepping between them. The dark-haired man glared at House who simply glared back. "You two, back to the conference room," House ordered of Chase and Foreman without having to look at them. Chase was going to tell House this didn't concern him. At the same time Mayes put the pain of his midsection out of his mind and stood to his full height.

House was also about six feet, three inches tall (maybe two and a half), but this man was younger, able-bodied and probably in better health. When he stood he was taller than the crippled doctor who stood with much of his weight on his cane. The man tried to stare House down but House pulled up to his full height as well, out of his characteristic slouched position.

The face-off between his former everything and his boss stopped Chase short. Foreman's grip on his jacket probably helped too. While not evenly matched, House had a weapon and a cunning mind to which Foreman put at better odds than a hapless, agitated Chase.

"Warren…just go," Chase said, eventually relenting and letting Foreman drag him away.

Neither House nor Mayes took their eyes off the other. Mayes knew in that moment that this man was going to be a problem. House was a little ahead of him. The moment he'd approached Chase, House knew this "Warren" guy was going to cause trouble.

"Get out of my way," Mayes said. His voice was deep, menacing, even with the accent.

House had to admit that it was the most sinister Aussie accent he'd ever heard. He'd always associated the Australian lilt with happy, cheerful, people and beaches. Even when Chase was being serious House couldn't help thinking about his accent and when he was joking the accent made him sound almost goofy. This man, 'Warren' as Chase had called him, was not goofy. He was actually pretty intimidating; almost scary in his intensity.

But House was stubborn and that counted for something. "So that you can assault my fellows again? Both physical and sexual assault in the space of five seconds –you trying to show me up?"

"Get out of my way. I won't say it again."

"You wouldn't hit a guy with a cane would you?" House tossed the cane up a little and caught it in the middle of his length. He patted the handle in to his free hand menacingly. The display didn't get the desired facial expression but the final result was what House had wanted.

"Fine," Mayes said with a tight, calculating grin. "I'm going." Mayes looked House up and down while he straightened his shirt and black jacket. He gave House a smile that was entirely too friendly before leaving. House watched him until he was out of sight. When he was sure the man was gone he went back to his small department ignoring the looks and whispers as he left. He arrived to see Chase handing Foreman an icepack to put at his shoulder.

House stood near the doorway and only spoke once both men noticed him. "Nice friend you've got there."

Chase tried to glare at him but he must have known that he was showing too much on his face and turned away. "He's not my friend." He could feel his composure failing. He knew that someone like House was seeing far more on his face than he wanted, especially now. Warren had always been able to step through every one of his boundaries without even trying. He'd always hated that. Hated it now especially, since he very much needed his walls against the people he worked with. House could pick anyone apart without much effort and Chase wasn't up to being his victim today.

"Well he must have been something…unless that's the new way they're greeting each other down under. I should give that a try. Foreman, c'mere."

Foreman gave him what passed for a glare but the painful tweak behind it stole some of the ire.

"Well, Foreman's broken, Cameron's busy. You're the only one not doing anything. And since you won't feed my curiosity…" House trailed off, perhaps hoping that Chase would turn and tell him something. All Chase did was turn and glare, and though it said a lot, it wasn't what House wanted. "Fine. You do the analysis." He tossed the small plastic bag with the flower blossom to Chase who caught it. He almost replied, almost talked back the way House was hoping he would. This was the most life he'd seen from Chase in a while. Too bad it wasn't House that had caused it.

Chase brushed passed him on his way out, and though his eyes were stormy House couldn't pin down precisely what churned the depths. He watched Chase until he turned a corder then sat himself in the chair at the head of the glass-topped table. With his chin and his eyes House made a vague gesture to indicate Foreman's aching joint. "I thought you fought better than that, you wimp."

---H/C---

Wilson listened to the tale with a restrained form of shock on his face. Chase was gay? Okay, that wasn't the point of House's story. He was sure the point had something to do with the brute with the Australian accent who had suddenly appeared at the hospital and frenched Dr. Chase in the middle of the lobby. James was sure the gossip express had disseminated the information to anyone with an ear and he wondered how he had not heard. It probably had to do with him practically locking himself in his office to do his dictations.

Still…Chase liked men? How come Wilson had never noticed? Perhaps more interesting how come House didn't know this. The man who prided himself on picking up on everything everyone tried to hide had missed this. Maybe it was too obvious. One look at the handsome boy and most people would wonder about his sexuality. He didn't talk with a lisp or have limp wrist. He didn't walk with a feminine gait. If anything his walk was that of an athlete, almost stiff at times, but always controlled and so fittingly Chase. So really, how was anyone supposed to know? He'd only ever flirted with women as far as Wilson knew.

"I bet the priests in the Seminary didn't know about that," House said with emphasis and a mild tone of derision that was supposed to cover his true reaction. The sudden descent of silence after his comment, the somewhat thoughtful, yet not devious, look in his eye contradicted his tone. Wilson wasn't fooled. He just wasn't sure what House was trying to hide.

"Chase said he wasn't his friend," Wilson argued only for the sake of argument.

"Only someone close to him can shake him like that, so either 'Warren' is a friend and Chase lied…or he's an enemy. You know the old saying."

Wilson did know. "I don't think it means that close."

"How much closer can you get?"

Wilson exhaled more noisily than necessary. He resettled himself in the chair, the recliner in the corner of House's office and folded his hands to rest on his lower abdomen. Make no mistake; this wasn't the first time the oncologist's best friend had meddled into matters that were truly none of his business. It was practically a weekly occurrence. Wilson was just glad that it wasn't him under House's microscope. He wished it weren't Chase either. The young man had enough to sort through.

A faint knock and a person at the door drew the attention of both doctors. It was a nurse; Sandra, Sandy, Samantha –something like that, House couldn't recall. She tentatively made her way in glancing at Dr. Wilson who sat at the chair near the door but didn't offer a greeting. House and Wilson waited expectantly.

"Uh…Dr. Chase asked me to give this to you," she said walking to House's desk. She place the lab report down and quickly exited the way she'd come.

"Where's Doctor Chase?" House asked a second before she stepped out.

"He said he was going home." She left after a few seconds of silence.

"She braved you just to do a favour for Chase," Wilson said in astonishment. This just seemed another piece of evidence of Chase's popularity with women.

"I guess the gossip hasn't made it to her yet." House snatched the report. It said what he knew it would say –the flowers hadn't just said it, they'd screamed it with the rash on the face of the woman House had met briefly that afternoon–that Doctor Henderson was an adulterer. House didn't even blink. Everybody's doing it. This was just some leverage in case he ever needed Henderson to be cooperative.

What did hold his attention was that Chase was leaving. House looked out the window. It was dark, the sun having set at least an hour ago. House thought to himself that if he were Warren, having travelled thousands of miles just to see Chase, he wouldn't give up so easily.

House was out of his chair and out the door before Wilson could utter more than three words of his question.

He didn't allow the man who entered the elevator with him to press the button for the second floor. House didn't have time to waste. The threat of the cane and the look in House's eye was enough to keep the other man at bay. House passed his little red car where it was resting in the handicap spot and visually searched the lot for a bright head of hair. He found it standing not far from a lamp used to illuminate the lot at night, and it was alone. House's let his shoulders relax, thinking perhaps that he was wrong. He wasn't.

Another man stepped out of the shadows announcing his presence to Chase. Even from a distance House could see Chase startle. He began towards them. Heated words were flying from Chase's mouth. The taller man's shoulder's rose and fell with his deep breath and just as suddenly as before he brought there lips together. Chase stumbled back against his car. Mayes used the sturdy vehicle to pin him there. In one hand he held one of Chase's wrists. The other was around his back pulling Chase into his body while he pressed against him. Chase's one free hand grasped at the back of Mayes jacket at first trying to pull him away but then relaxing spreading over the back of the broad shoulder, not encouraging but no longer resisting either.

Seeing this House stopped, his yell still stuck in his throat. The low lighting might have been playing tricks on his eyes but swore he saw Chase kiss back, though only for a moment. Conflicted for reasons he didn't want to address, House offered no assistance when Chase decided he didn't want the embrace anymore. This time Mayes let him go. Chase said something again, something cruel judging from his eyes. He got into his car, started the engine and quickly drove away leaving the dark haired man, and House standing in the parking lot.

The light blue Buick LeSabre didn't even pass House by as Chase drove off. And wasn't that insulting? Leaving House out of this argument, out of whatever part of his life had so grandly made a reappearance. House felt as if Chase had just blown him off. Him! House! Best diagnostician in the country. He couldn't even be bothered to bring the results to House himself. Instead he'd sent some random nurse.

House was no longer the centre of Chase's attention. One would suppose he hadn't been for a while. After that punch, his words didn't seem to scratch as deeply at the wounded man. His jokes didn't get the warm welcome that they did before. He was no longer above whatever it was that Chase had held him higher than. It might be the closest House would ever come from falling from grace, since he couldn't recall ever being on its plains before.

Still it was his actions that had put him where he now was. The actions he didn't want to take responsibility for, actions of which his brilliance usually absolved him. Not this time. Or rather, not that time. So it was ludicrous to blame this Warren person for the altered dynamic between him and his intesivist. He hadn't stolen Chase's attention. House had lost it some time ago. Unfortunately for House, jealousy was not a convenient mistress.

---H/C---

**End Chapter 3**


	5. Marks of Claim

Chapter Rating: NC-17

Warning(s): Language, Adult Situations, Violence, M/M relationships. Do not read this story if any of these bother you!

**Chapter 4 Marks of Claim****  
**

Chase's small apartment was a labyrinth of boxes. He'd been packing for a while now; since about the time the tingling in the back of his mind and the reappearance of the spectres could no longer be ignored. Collecting what he wanted to keep, making plans for what he wanted to donate, disposing of what wouldn't be wanted by anyone. The walls were bare of the few framed black and white images he'd hung on them. His television was boxed ready to go to the shelter which would be taking most of the belongings he'd acquired since his landing in the United States.

He had been careful at first, trying not to buy anything, trying not to settle into his new domicile. His home would have made any minimalist proud back then. Even his bed had been just a mattress on the floor. It was no way to live though. He'd made the mistake of have a friend over at his place, hadn't been able to avoid it. He also hadn't been able to avoid the questions and comments about his living style. No couch, no TV, only a small table with two chairs, his mattress and the counters against the wall that came with the apartment.

"Okay, I've seen one other guy that lives like this," his friend said after being assured that Chase hadn't moved in just a few days ago, "but he'd been paying child support on, like, six kids."

The comment hadn't pushed him into buying furnishings. The couch for instance, he'd only accepted it to be polite. Someone was moving out, she claimed to be too old and too lazy to ship it with the rest of her items and had offered it to him. News of his bare apartment had made it around somehow. He couldn't say no and have her think that her couch wasn't good enough for him. And this wasn't just him being asinine, she'd said as much when he'd first refused, then smiled when he reluctantly accepted. The curve of her lips and the brightness in her old eyes stood out from the weathered face, silently telling him: "Yes, that's right. I know what's good for you," as though she was his doting grandmother or something.

He'd known her for all of ten minutes and he'd remember her, and that look for the rest of his life.

After that things just seemed to find their way into his house. A coffee table, a real bed, a television –by far the most expensive and indulgent of his purchases. Flat screen, high definition, it was his marker of officially moving on, of putting his past firmly behind him where it was supposed to be, not lurking two years in the future. He'd lived his delusion for those two years, happy in it, belonging finally. Then it had begun again and he should have known. He should have known.

Now he was packing it all away (donating the TV), slinking out, and running like he'd done the time before, to ride it out on his own. Yes it was time to go. He'd already been here too long. Seven years, like clock work his mysterious nightmare started over.

"Rob?" the call accompanied a knock on the door he was leaning against. He recognized Warren's voice and reached to lock the door. He wasn't fast enough. The handle turned and a weight pressed against it. He pushed back but a hard shove propelled him backward and freed the door to swing open.

Warren was inside with the door closed and locked behind him before Chase managed to right himself from the box he'd fallen on.

"Robin—"

"Stop calling me that!"

"It's what I've always called you." Warren's calm voice was in sharp contrast to Chase's frantic one.

"I don't care! Get out of here!" He tried to back up when Warren approached but the boxes on the floor prevented his escape. A quick glance down showed him a slim route for escape and he took it. With some more distance and a few boxes between them Robert hoped to find a more even emotional footing. He didn't. Like he always had, Warren left him absolutely helpless, completely weak. Even after all these years.

"Robin…Rob, I'm sorry." Sorry. What had sorry ever changed?

Chase shook his head. "I don't bloody care! Get out!"

Warren was still calm. He made his way around the boxes and the island counter in the kitchen. Robert moved to always keep something between them but he was running out of objects.

"You know I can't leave you. I made that mistake once before. It was the worst one of my life."

Chase knew he was out of options. The apartment was only so big, the obstacles only so many. He made a dash for the door. He unlocked and opened it faster than one would usually imagine performing such a mundane task. In this instance there was much riding on his escape. Robert knew the moment the large hand slammed the door closed and the warm body shadowed his own that he was trapped.

Warm breath minutely ruffled the bright strands of hair. Warren rested his cheek on the soft bed of hair and murmured, "I am so sorry." His left hand slipped around to Robert's front. He slipped his fingers between the spacing of the shirts buttons and touched warm, smooth skin. He felt a shiver and a flutter of tense muscles beneath his touch. "I missed you…every part of me –from the top of my head to darkest part of my soul, I missed you."

Mayes closed his eyes, unable to keep his tears from falling. He knew it would hard. He hadn't expected it to be this easy, the words to come so freely. He'd thought he wanted escape. Apparently he'd been wrong. Nothing made him more whole now than to be with his Robin. Nothing made him more repentant than his transgression of yesterdays seven years ago.

Nothing made him happier than Robert's faint response.

"I missed you too."

They were trapped together.

They must have stood there for ten minutes. Chase broke away first and Mayes let him go. There were entwined once again. If not for the dangers lurking at that moment, Warren would have let him wander to the ends of the earth because he knew Robert would come back.

Hesitantly Chase reclaimed a small metal tin from one of the boxes in the kitchen. He filled his kettle with water from the tap and plugged it, waiting silently for it to boil. He kept his eyes averted, unable to meet Warren's until the clink of ceramic on the counter drew his attention.

Warren's eyes caught his, the mugs he'd retrieved instantly forgotten. "You kept it."

"Of course I kept it." Chase scowled and turned his back. He jostled the kettle, mentally cursing it. Why wouldn't it boil? Behind him, Mayes smiled.

Eventually the kettle whined its job's completion and two cups of tea were made in the tradition that they'd always been made in –two teabags from the tin with the clowns and the merry-go-round embossed into the side, two teaspoons of sugar, and a touch of milk.

"I remember when I gave this to you," Warren said, eyes on the metal tin holding the teabags. He took a sip of his beverage and sighed at the rush of memories invoked.

Chase nodded silently. He remembered too. He had just turned seven, Warren was thirteen, and Robert wanted to be like the adults. He wanted tea too but Warren had been the only one who would share with him. Then Warren bought him his own tea and though he wouldn't actually make any until years later (discovering that even dry leaves have a shelf-life), the gift and the bright image trapped in the metal had won him over again.

He put the lid back on and went to put it back in the box of things he was keeping from the kitchen. Among them was a cook book, his little kitchen radio, some of the fridge magnets and a finely ground spice a friend had bought for him in India.

With his back turned Chase could not have noticed Warren's worried look or the quick motion that dropped white powder into his tea. It quickly dissolved. By the time Chase was back at his drink, there was no evidence of the tampering. He drank his tea unable to taste the chemical with which it was now laced.

"Finished?" Mayes asked several minutes of mostly silence later.

Chase downed the last bit of the now cool drink and nodded. Mayes took the cups to the sink. He washed them with the sponge and soap that had yet to be packed away or thrown out, and left the two mugs and one spoon to dry in the dish drainer. Not finding a hand towel nearby, Mayes shook as much of the water from his hands as possible and wiped them on his jeans.

"So why now?" Chase asked as Mayes pivoted away from the sink. "What or who tipped you off." There were always warnings. Small things began to change, people in the background began doing things that caused results on the surface. Chase never saw this. He always kept himself separate from it. He didn't need those types of warnings. He had his own built in ones, and they couldn't be ignored, no matter how hard he tried.

"A friend of yours came by me."

"Which side?"

"Does it matter?"

Chase shrugged. "I suppose not." Both sides had their plans. He just wanted nothing to do with either of them. His mind went back to memories of close calls years past. When his thoughts returned to the present, Chase found Mayes standing very close to him.

"What?" he asked, irritated. His irritation grew when Warren just smiled. The smile dimmed.

"You seem…lonely," Mayes commented. Chase gave an ambiguous grunt in response. He left for the bedroom. He needed to change out of his work clothes. The collar and his tie were too restricting, and under Mayes's gaze he felt out of place in them anyway. The tie, still knotted, was flung onto a rack in his closet. His shirt went into the hamper near the door. He'd already undone his belt and was about to drop his pants when the door to the bedroom opened without so much as a knock.

"Hey!" Chase did up the fly of his pants. "A little privacy!"

Mayes paused at the door, unsure of how much had changed. "You never complained before." He strode over to the shorter man who didn't step away or back down.

"You've filled out a little," Mayes commented with a smile. His eyes roved over the body that was familiar but still subtly different than his memories.

"I told you I would," Chase said frostily, unable to help falling back in to the old argument. Warren could still see the pout in his friend's expression and like so many times before he found it difficult to take the boy seriously.

"Stop it."

Warren blinked. What had he done now? "Stop what?"

"That…thing. You're doing it again."

"Doing what? Charming the pants off of you?" His hands stroked down the warm slender sides. He hooked his thumbs into the waist to the pants and pushed down. Chase pulled up. The pants didn't move.

"We can't do this," Chase protested softly. He was already in deep enough. He couldn't risk going further, could he? He'd placed his trust in this man all his life and only once had he ever let him down. Robert had been proud and happy for Warren that day, though he had despaired at facing his future challenges alone. Warren had freed himself, written his own destiny. Chase had endeavoured to do the same and succeeded on some levels. Now, he was being asked to take a huge step back.

A warm hand left his hips to settle on his head. Warren stroked the smooth forehead. He brought his other hand and laid it over Robert's firm chest. "Is there someone else in here?" the words echoed into their shared pasts where Warren had asked the same thing many times before. It had been his way of asking if little Robbie had a crush on someone. Seven years older and wiser he'd read the little boy pretty well, but there was always a part that was inaccessible, even when Chase was a baby. When asked, Robert had always said that Warren was the only one in there. Earlier on his Mummy had been in their too, his father earlier than that. Eventually it was just Warren.

But seven years had slipped by. More than enough time for a young, attractive man to find someone else.

Chase shook his head in response to the question and sadly asked his own. "How could there be?"

In heart and mind there was only Warren Mayes. Chase had thought that wasn't true anymore. He was all grown up. A man and a success in his own right. And yet, Warren was still the only one. He'd just forgotten.

Pulling Warren down to his level, Robert kissed him.

---H/C---

His phone was ringing. The nasal strains of The Mexican Hat Dance from the small phone speaker turned the heads of both men. Chase had chosen the shrillest ring-tone he could find on his phone for this particular caller. He thought it was well-suited. Warren had always known Robert too well. So it was no surprise when he snatched the phone from the bedside table and answered knowing exactly who it was.

"What do you want, Doctor House?" He asked tersely. His voice was strained with his exertions and below him Robert's eyes were wide with trepidation. He was going to say something and at the same time was reaching out for the phone to take the phone, but Warren had other plans. He put the phone down briefly and caught both of Chase's wrists, confined them in one large hand and retook the phone.

"Sorry, you'll have to repeat that."

"Warren…uh—" Chase bit down on his words when a hard thrust aimed just right would have pushed a moan from him.

"Where's Chase?" House's voice enquired from the speaker.

Warren stared down at the strained face. The light sheen of sweat made the lamp glow a tender kiss on his skin and emphasized the flush of his face and the brightness in his eyes. Warren leaned down and kissed him, not breaking the rhythm of his hips.

"He's busy," was the breathy reply a moment before the line cut.

House glared at his phone. That pretty much cinched his decision. Now where the hell did Chase live?

Back in the apartment Warren tried to put the annoying doctor out of his mind. He much preferred the doctor beneath him.

"God, Robin," Warren moaned into the soft neck.

"Please, please…let go," Chase begged, trying to pull his hands free of the iron grip.

"Mm-mm," Warren minutely shook his head and assaulted the supple flesh. "I like you just like this." He gave another hard thrust and felt his arousal rise with the strangle cry from the rose lips.

"Warren…please…"

A strong arm slipped around his waist and fingers dug into his side a moment before the thrusts into him increased in pace and ferocity. Chase couldn't hold back. He did what he could to meet the motions. He bit down on his bottom lip trying to suppress the yell that burned at the back of his throat.

Suddenly it stopped. Chase practically whimpered at the loss of sensation. He opened his eyes and found Mayes just looking down at him. Chase moved his hips as much as he could in an attempt to precipitate the motions he needed at that moment almost as much as he needed air.

"Warren?" Chase didn't know what was wrong. He wasn't sure it mattered because with no warning, Warren was moving again, sliding slowly out and then completely back in. It was torture. "Warren…please," Robert whispered.

Mayes watched the flushed face contort with the teasing pleasure he was providing. He knew that once the urgent need to climax wore off Chase would stop shivering only for the slow deep thrusts to build the sensations again to the point of no return. Warren loved having him like this. He loved seeing the look in the fair eyes, knowing that he was the one who put it there. There was trust, love and lust. Warren twisted them up and ensnared Robert with them. He coaxed the embers to a fierce burn and sullied what was pure. He loved that more than he should. It was the darkness in him that thought to use sex as a method to bring them both down to the same level of debasement. He watched Robert's eyes seeing how much he wanted it too and come hell, they would face it together, equal in their sins.

He crushed his lips to Robert's, plunged his tongue in deep, pushed in as far as he could go. The moan, the cry, the curse, whatever it was going to be was muffled by Warren's lips. He continued his assault, letting go and focussing only on the pleasure and the man in his arms.

Chase climaxed first, his head thrown back, their kiss broken but a deeper connection still in tact. Warren bit down on the unguarded neck, just enough sense still in him not to bite too hard. He licked at the hot skin as the sheath around him tightened and pulled, pushing him over the edge as well. He thrust harder still, pushing for as deep as he could go, claiming any of this body and soul he hadn't touched yet. He felt Robert jerk in his arm, his over sensitized body quaking with each powerful motion until finally they lapsed into stillness.

Warren panted and tried to call back his senses, which he was sure were strewn all over the room. He shifted enough to let Robert put his legs flat on the bed and soothed away the unavoidable ache of the position. A hand through his dark hair urged Warren to look up from the plateau of pectoral where he'd laid his cheek. Robert's serene gaze touched his troubled mind. He bowed his head and kissed the other man's chest.

It was always the same. It always ended like this; after his mind's insistence that he sully this lovely being, he felt cleaner and more loved under that gaze than he knew he deserved. And the conflict would become peace and a touch of shame.

"We need to shower," Chase said softly. He still had one hand resting in Mayes's hair and didn't make any motion to get up. He was quite comfortable except for the sticky semen cooling on his stomach. Sometimes he could feel his partner's breath flow over it and the chill preceded an intense need to wash.

Mayes sighed. He really didn't want to move, however, the suggestion did have its merits, particularly if they showered together –which they did. It wasn't the fun type of shower, though there was a little groping and kissing to be enjoyed. For Mayes it was part business. The powder he'd given Robert was a sedative and its effects would show up any minute now.

"Sleepy?" Mayes asked casually as he donned his shirt after doing up his pants.

Seated at the edge of the bed Chase nodded. His bleary eyes remained on the carpet of his small bedroom. He knew he felt strange. He knew that this sudden, overcoming fatigue wasn't simply because of earlier activities. This was unnatural.

"Come on, Robbie," Mayes coaxed gently, pulling Chase to stand. He swayed a little leading Mayes to put Chase's hand on his shoulders for balance. Mayes helped Chase pull up the sweatpants that he had left halfway up his thighs when he became light-headed.

Once his pants were on Chase moved away from Mayes. Something was wrong, he knew. He needed to get away. He had intended to go to the door but his heavy limbs didn't stop him in time and he stumbled past, into the back of his couch.

"Careful," the deep voice said softly, close to his ear. Chase would have pulled away but there were already hands on him, guiding him around to the cushions of the couch. He held on to Mayes's shirt using the other man's sturdy body to prevent him from falling to the couch. Chase knew if he sat down, he wouldn't have the strength to get back up.

At the blond man's resistance Mayes held back a sigh, though his chest did heave with a deep breath. Avoiding looking at the blue-green eyes Mayes took the choice away from Robert, scooping him up in his arms and then sitting on the couch himself. They fell the last few inches to the soft padding. The springs squeaked a little in protest to the sudden weight. Mayes carefully arranged his lover's legs on the couch and cradled his upper body with his arms and firm chest.

Chase's head lolled at the shoulder where it was suddenly resting. His muscles were no long responding to his commands and his brain was foggy. Around him his apartment was nothing more than a swirl of light brown boxes and white ceiling. He thought he might be sick but he felt too weak for that too.

"You'll be okay." The assurance floated to him reminding Chase that he wasn't alone. The warm, somewhat yielding structure he was collapsed against was a person –a person who had drugged him. Barely able to open his eyes and unable to push away all Chase could give was a weak accusing stare.

Mayes looked away. "I had to," he justified. "It's better to do this now than later. You know that."

He did know that. Lessons learnt through experience were hard to forget. But Mayes didn't have time to debate the pros and cons of this method. What he was doing was to keep both of them safe, buy them as much time as he could. They needed to act, even if it meant that he had to force Robert's will, or take it away entirely.

Chase couldn't fight the potent drug any longer. His eyes closed, though he didn't quite fall asleep. He wouldn't allow himself to give in all the way. It sapped the rest of his strength but he managed to stay semi-conscious, reality slipping in and out and rippling like a reflection in a pond. He felt Warren move, shifting to get something. He never allowed Chase to slip from his embrace. He murmured to him soothing sentiments and kissed his shoulder and the fingers of one limp hand.

The words changed, in what seemed like a gradual transition, from English to Latin. Chase still understood every word. He'd studied Latin but he'd also heard these particular phrases before.

Mayes held Chase a bit tighter allowing the soft invocation to slip past his lips. Head on Mayes shoulder, left arm trapped between their chests, and legs stretched out along the rest of the couch, Chase didn't react as Mayes rubbed his hand up and down his bare back. Warren felt the minor increase in the heat of the skin for a moment and knew that his words were taking effect. His words were done now so all he had to do was wait it out.

The lips near his neck moved, creating faint and confused words. Mayes gently hushed him and rocked a little hoping to pacify any lingering unrest the ritual or his subterfuge may have caused.

Gently rocking back and forth his arms full of his Robin, Warren stared blankly ahead hoping for forgiveness and wondering what was to come. A loud, jarring set of knocks from the apartment door had not been one of the things he'd expected. He froze, eyes closed and arms tightening around his precious charge.

Had they found them already? He wasn't ready. They weren't ready.

"Chase, open up!"

The familiar voice drained away the tension from Mayes. He released a shaky breath and pressed his cheek to the one near him, thankful that his worry had been for nothing. A weak protest from the relaxed body prompted Mayes to loosen a little the tight hold he'd locked Chase in during his moments of anxiety.

"Sorry," he apologized softly.

"Chase!"

Mayes glanced at the door. He hoped that without a response Dr. House would leave.

"I know you're in there! If you don't open this door I'll knock it down!"

Empty threat, Warren thought to himself. Even if he had the energy and strength to, with one bum leg the old man wouldn't be knocking down anything. Mayes gave all of his attention back to Chase. He raised his hand to comb through the gold hair and ignored the muted sounds from the other side of the door. If he had been paying more attention to them, he might not have been so surprised when the door suddenly opened when, Mayes was sure he'd locked it.

House stood in the doorway, the credit card he'd used to undo the lock still in his hand. He shoved the piece of plastic into a pant pocket, switched his cane back to his right hand and entered, uninvited. It had never stopped him before.

"You've got ten seconds to leave before I call the cops," Mayes threatened.

House paused. Mayes thought that perhaps the man would leave. House reached out for the door and pushed it to swing closed, his person still firmly inside the apartment. A quick look around from his spot near the door showed House mostly boxes. Chase was leaving? He hadn't heard anything about this.

Not dwelling on his confusion, but not ignoring it either, House approached the couch. He nearly asked for Chase's whereabouts when he saw the mop of blond hair. Rounding to the front House took a good look at the pair. Mayes's distrustful and angry glare didn't bother him in the least. What did bother him and add to his confusion was the marking on Chase's back. A tattoo –that would be the subject of taunts and questions later. For now he wanted to know who exactly this dark-haired Australian was and what precisely he was to Chase.

"Chase—"

"Shut up. You'll wake him."

House glared. "Chase! Get up! That's enough cuddling with your boyfriend!" The yell was met with a fiery glare from Mayes but from Chase, only slurred, unclear words. Mayes was immediately trying to calm him. House was immediately diagnosing.

"What did you give him?" His question was quick and his eyes were narrowed in suspicion.

"It's nothing…just something to relax him."

"Is that what they're calling Ruffies in Australia these days?"

The slang term for the too common date rape drug wasn't lost on Warren and he had to hold back his anger at the accusation. "Lorazepam –just a few milligrams," he bit out his dark eyes darkened further with his ire.

"I should be the one calling the cops. You may not know this but you're not allowed to drug people in America."

Mayes wasn't scared. "I don't think breaking and entering is allowed either. We can go to jail together."

They stared at each other for several drawn out seconds. Each of them sized the other up, trying to determine his motives and his weakness. The only weakness that House could find in Mayes was Chase. He would have kept looking, kept trying to visually pick him apart, but something moving caught his eyes. At first he thought it was just a trick of the shadows but he blinked and it was still moving. Slowly, House moved closer.

The tattoo was moving. He was pretty sure most of them don't do that.

The mark was an inverted, five-pointed star enclosed by a ring. Within the pentagram there was a drawing of a goats head, its chin, ears and two horns each filling one angle of the star. In the ring bordering the pentagram words written in cursive script rotated around, Latin symbols and phrases which meant nothing to House. He moved closer wanting a better look at the black ink-work. Near enough to touch the smooth back littered with a few freckles, House could see the ring around the star was actually made of two lines of chains. And not only did the words and symbols within the ring slide around in the closed loop they also changed, fading in an out as though sending a message or telling s story with the limited space.

House had never seen anything like this on a person's skin before. He glanced up at Chase when he heard the man make a slight snuffling sound. Mayes quickly eased him and House shifted his gaze to the symbol again and was startled into a slight jerk when the beady eyes in the goat's head suddenly slid to look directly at him.

Unable to swallow, even breath House held the image's gaze. After several seconds the goat head opened its mouth and began to speak. Its words weren't heard but rather they were felt. Through the bodies of the three men rumbles of unrest skewed their balance, confused their senses, muddied their thoughts. A sharp cry filled the room and suddenly the episode ended.

House blinked several times, his eyes still wide with the alarm of what had just happened. It took both House and Mayes a second to break out of their shock and notice that Chase was still in distress, his cry having broken the disturbing spell. It was only Mayes's arms, which had remained around Chase throughout the strange encounter, that kept him from lashing out. His cries were pain-filled and though he tried to hold them back, even the faint ones cut through the other two men like sharp blades.

The previously limp hand, the one not trapped, reached up in an impossibly fast motion to grab at Mayes's shirt. The way Chase jerked in the taller Australian's arms was disturbingly abnormal -his head twisting one way, then jerking to the other, the motion an almost nonexistent blur.

Over Warren Mayes's face his rising distress was frozen over with an eerie, brittle calm. He reached to he hold the blond head in place and laid the side of his face against the one contorted with anguish. His lips moved, again speaking Latin, faintly at the beginning and growing more forceful with each word.

"…sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra."

It was a prayer. The Lord's Prayer and it was the only defence Mayes's had for the moment. House had nothing (though he lumped praying in with nothing) and could only watch as Mayes continued with the prayer until eventually Chase's strained and weak voice joined in and they finished the prayer together.

Even then the torment didn't end. Chase was still in pain, his body still quaking while Mayes tightly restrained him. Mayes began the prayer over again.

Chase had hand enough and made his demand.

"Vade…retro me…Satana…"

Four foreign words uttered from a near breathless throat and in a frail voice, yet their bodies shivered and they were suddenly alone. The echo of the weak cry permeated them, made the edge of their sight hazy as though the world was resonating on an unknown note. A brief ache coursed through House and Mayes head before it vanished, leaving them with a lightness that, though normal, they could only appreciate when the oppression was gone.

"Robbie?" Mayes worried voice cut through House daze.

With his eyes tightly closed and body still tense, Chase shivered through the last vestiges of whatever had just happened. His pained moans were interrupted by his hitching breath. Nothing Mayes did seemed enough to bring him any calm, though he tried desperately. His thin veneer of peace began to fracture and splinter as Chase's distress continued. Mayes continued to hold on.

House, still kneeling facing Chase's back had a near unobstructed view as the sinister symbol on Chase's back began to fade. House wasn't sure where his mind was but it appeared to be telling his left hand to raise and rest against the shivering back. The sensitive palm and underside of his fingers fell softly over the feverish skin. A second later Chase's shivers began to subside and his muffled sounds of distress quieted until there was on his laboured breathing.

Mayes stared at House not sure if the timing of House's touch and the cessation of Robert's discomfort was a coincidence or a true effect. Had this wretched man been able to provide comfort where Warren couldn't? Mayes didn't like the thought of that at all. Robert was his to protect, his to care for, his to love.

"That thing is gone," House said. His voice was unusually soft, so much so that Chase in his daze nearly didn't recognize it. "How much of that sedative did you give him again?" That question held more of House's familiar bite and mistrust.

"Ten milligrams of Lorazepam," Mayes told him. He had one hand lightly combing through Chase's hair still waiting for the lingering discomfort to subside.

House stared and thought silently. Ten milligrams was a fairly large dose of a fairly potent sedative. They used it in the hospital to counter seizures. House knew that Chase was familiar with the drug with intensive care as his specialty. House was also knowledgeable about the drug and though it might have been a while since he'd administered it first hand, he still knew what it was supposed to do.

"He shouldn't have been able to move." House's eyes narrowed and took in the length of Chase's body as though the clue to solve this mystery was on him somewhere.

"I knew it was going to be bad," Mayes mumbled to himself. "I should have used more." He gazed apologetically at Chase who was now a fair bit more relaxed than he was a minute ago.

"You load him up on more of than and he just might stop breathing. You don't want him that relaxed." House delivered his comment with a glare up at the large man ensconcing his intensivist. "What the hell is going on?" He couldn't deduce the answer to this mystery out from the evidence before him. He wasn't even sure if what he'd seen was real or a hallucination caused by his pills, though they'd never done that to him before.

"You won't believe me. Why should I bother?" House also wasn't a part of this so why should Mayes explain?

"Try me?"

Mayes laughed. "You're a sceptic if I've ever seen one. I'm not going to waste by breath on you."

House was frustrated, worried, willing to a at least listen and hold his scathing and ridiculing comments to the end. "Something way that side of weird just happened, and right now I'll even consider whatever your absurd explanation happens to be."

"It's complicated."

"You can start with the thing on his back," House encouraged nastily.

Mayes turned his attention back to the young man in his arms, already giving up on the possibility of the older man understanding. "It's time for you to go now, Doctor House."

House's face pulled into a scowl that went to waste. Mayes only had eyes for Chase. And Chase, well, he wasn't anywhere near lucid. House pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open saying, "You know who you should try explaining this to? The cops. In fact there's this one, real bastard of a detective who's really passionate about drug control. I think he'll be very interested in what's going on here." He blinked innocently up at Mayes who was now eyeing him. "Unless you have a prescription for the sedative?" Mayes didn't say anything. House hit 'send' on his cell and brought it to his ear. "Yeah –didn't think so."

Standing after being on one knee for so long was a trial without mention of his injured right leg. When he did eventually get to his feet House exited the apartment while he spoke to the person who had answered his call.

Mayes, furious at the meddling doctor, watched him go. If the cops came he would be in a great deal of trouble. Even if they couldn't find any evidence of what he'd done this would still cause problems for him. He didn't need more complications. Doctor Gregory House was enough.

With his lips pressed into a thin regretful line and eyes torn over his decision, Mayes gently got up and laid Chase along the couch. He gave him a brief kiss and touched his face once before he stood. House was standing there and had witnessed the tender, though one-sided exchange. Mayes wasn't embarrassed or remorseful at all, not for being spied on by this wretch of a man.

"You take good care of him," Mayes ordered. The threat of what he would do if his words weren't followed was delivered in the tone of his voice.

House wasn't intimidated. He rarely was even if he had good reason to be. When he responded his tone carried the message that he didn't take orders from Mayes, and he liked to think not from anyone. "You might want to leave before you hear the sirens. It would be really awkward if you passed them in the lobby."

The sirens began to be heard coming from a distance and Mayes wisely chose not to delay his departure any longer. He brushed past the unshaven older man and disappeared to somewhere House didn't care about, as long as it was far from him and Chase. He rested his gaze on the still form and thought silently, trying to sift through what he knew, what he knew he didn't know and what he'd just seen. He couldn't find anything that remotely made sense.

"Why did we have to keep the sirens on all the way?" the man in uniform asked when he arrived, his partner quickly following him into the open apartment.

"Because Cuddy said so. That's why," House replied shortly and wondered why he replied at all. "Him," he said looking down at Chase. "I want him in a private room on the third floor. He was administered a high dose of Ativan and is displaying unusual symptoms."

"What symptoms?" the paramedic asked as he checked over the sleeping man.

"None that you'd be able to make any sense of. Just get him to the hospital." He exited without a look back. He waited by his car and watched as the two men brought Chase out on the stretcher and loaded him into the back of the ambulance. House glanced around into the darkness, suspecting that Mayes was near by fuming over being duped. The siren that Mayes had mistaken for police was just the paramedics. House smirked at the dark surroundings and hopped into his car to follow the ambulance back to the hospital.

---H/C---

The rest of the night was tense. Even in his state of drug induced slumber Chase seemed to find no rest. Nearing the early morning when the drug left more of his muscles free to flex, he moved more, head turning from one side to the other in agitation. House watched each motion and wondered what was playing out in the dreams Chase couldn't escape.

When sunrise finally reared it pink and orange head House was too tired and tense to do more than glare at the bright, cheerful colours. He'd spent the whole night next to Chase. He told himself it was because the night shift security refused to call in another guard to act as a sentry to Chase's hospital room. House was still worried about that Mayes fellow coming back. He didn't think Mayes would actually hurt Chase, but sweeping him off to the ends of the earth where House wouldn't ever see him again seemed within the realm of possibility. So he stayed the night. There were too many questions he needed answered for Chase to disappear now.

"House?" Foreman's voice startled the older doctor out of his daze. "What are you doing here? What's wrong with Chase?" Foreman glanced around but didn't see a patient chart. Neither was there any equipment monitoring or giving Chase anything. "Is there something wrong with his place that he needed to stay here?" House sometimes wished he could pull-off that Foreman brand of both mockery and concern merged into one unsuspecting question.

"Other than the asshole that drugged him? Nope."

"…What?"

"I'm going to shower. You stay here and keep an eye on him. He should be waking up soon. If that guy, the one who broke your shoulder comes back, yell loud and let some real men take care of him."

Foreman didn't even watch House leave. House didn't miss the sour expression on Foreman's face as he left but its appearance made him feel marginally better. Sighing silently Foreman checked Chase's pulse and breathing, just to be sure, before he sat down in House's abandoned chair to wait.

The ceiling had ceased to be interesting some time ago but the position allowed him to be completely boneless in the not-quite-comfortable chair. He only made the effort to move out of the position when sudden gasping and motion form the bed alerted him that Chase was awake.

"Chase, calm down."

Eyes wide and breathing heavy Chase couldn't pull enough air in to calm his panic. He'd been trapped and he couldn't even remember were. All he knew was that he'd felt himself dying and he'd found an escape. Eventually his fright ebbed away but Foreman was still looking at him with concern.

"I'm okay."

Eric didn't even bother to say that he didn't believe the Australian. He thought that was plain in his expression.

"What happened?" Chase asked still somewhat drowsy. He rubbed at his eyes.

"I don't know. I was hoping you could tell me. I arrive and nobody is around. I hear that House is hanging out with a patient, which I thought was a sure indication that his Vicodin finally fried his brain, only to find you here, out cold from what House tells me is a drugging."

Chase took a moment to digest the information. "I have to go," he said flipping away the covers that were still over his legs and stepping down to the floor. His shoes were nearby and the clothing that he'd worn last night had been augmented to include a T-shirt. Noticing for the first time that it wasn't his –it was at least a size too big –Chase plucked it from his chest to get a better look at the faded image on the front.

"Yeah…" Foreman drawled coming to the side of the bed so that he was facing Chase. "Something you want to tell me about you and House?"

Chase glanced up at him eyes and expression confused.

He was wearing one of House's shirts.

---H/C---

House stormed into the diagnostics conference room.

"I told you to watch him!" The anger and panic in the voice froze the two occupants. Cameron looked perplexed at the show of emotion. She took in both men's expression and waited silently.

"He woke up, he was fine. What, did you want me to do? Tie him to the bed to keep him there?"

"I thought that was implied," House said leaning forward and leaning heavily on his cane.

Foreman crossed his arms and cocked his head back in that arrogant self-assured way that House couldn't believe still existed in his fellow. Working for him should have wiped Foreman clean of all that by now. "I had no reason to keep him there. He didn't want to stay there. He said he didn't need protection from Mayes, only from you. Seems you've been sticking your nose where it doesn't belong, again." Foreman gave him a smile. "Chase said his next stop was to see Cuddy. You've gone too far this time."

House didn't comment. He always went too far but when all was said and done, it was his tenacity and his actions that saved the day (or the patient) in most cases. Foreman shouldn't really be complaining about him going too far as he'd benefited from it once, not too long ago. There would have been more benefit if Cameron hadn't jumped the gun but no permanent harm no foul, he supposed.

"What was that about?" Cameron asked when House departed without a word.

Foreman shook his head. He wasn't entirely sure himself.

---H/C---

House managed to catch Chase not far from Cuddy's office; looked like he had just left her presence.

"Chase!" House called and though he was sure Chase heard him the young man didn't pause or slow his stride. House scowled. He was tall though, so when Chase had to pause at a busy doorway House had enough time to catch up. "What did you talk to Cuddy about."

"I quit," Chase both declared and informed.

House didn't say anything at first. Chase strode quickly away once he could. House followed. "If this is about last night…" he saw from the corner of his eye a nurse and some other guy look at him curiously.

Chase stopped and faced House suddenly, leaving House barely enough time to come to a stop. He managed too, barely an inch from Chase. "This isn't about you," Chase informed, bursting the vain little bubble that had been allowed to grow for too long in House's mind. When weren't thing about him? He always played an important role in the hospital and in the people around him. People were always trying to change him, trying to fit themselves into his life, change his mind. At some point Chase had fallen out of that category and House wanted him back.

"This has never been about you. Believe it or not, I have my own life outside of this hospital and I'm perfectly happy without you in it."

House tilted his head at that. "But wouldn't it be more fun with me?"

Chase clenched his teeth in aggravation. House could see it in the flex of his jaw. "Leave me alone."

"No."

"…fucking bastard," Chase said, not quite under his breath. Becoming aware of their proximity and that they were standing in the middle of a busy hallway Chase stepped back. After a silent moment he continued towards the stairs. House knew where Chase was going and use the elevators to beat him there.

Chase was ambushed the moment he got back to the Diagnostics conference room. How did such a tall, awkward man move so silently? Chase wondered when House appeared from thin air behind him.

"Forgot something here when you escaped yesterday," House said nodding to the coat rack where Chase's brown jacket was hanging. Chase was going to get it and leave. He didn't make it a foot closer to it. House's left hand was holding on to him digging into his bicep. "You're not going anywhere until you tell me what I want to know."

"And if I don't what are you going to do? Beat it out of me with your cane?"

"I bet you'd like that."

"Fuck you!" Chase tired to pull away. House held on tighter.

"House, stop it!" Cameron exclaimed when she saw Chase's expression pinch in pain. She didn't know what House's angle was and didn't know why Chase was being so defiant, but this was only going to escalate if someone didn't intervene.

"Not until he explains his weird behaviour, the bruises from nowhere, the vanishing tattoo, and the sudden appearance of an old flame that he's clearly so tormented about."

Foreman had at first thought that Chase was the one who was in some sort of trouble and House was trying to help in his characteristically brash and insensitive way. After hearing what he'd just heard, he thought perhaps it was House who needed help.

"It's none of your concern!" Chase continued to try and twist his arm out of House's grip. He was hesitant to pull to hard, lest he bring House, with his bad leg, crashing down. His concern was dwindling however and didn't notice when House's brows drew together.

"What is that?" House asked glancing around. He didn't relinquish his hold on Chase's arm as he did. "Are you wearing perfume?" he asked Cameron.

She shook her head. She didn't wear perfume in the hospital knowing that some people were sensitive to the odours. So if the faint, sweet, flowery scent wasn't coming from her, then where?

Finally, Chase wrenched his arm free of the strong hold. The momentum of his efforts and the sudden release threw him off-balance. Before he could get his feet under him, he'd fallen to the carpet. He came to rest on his side. They knew something was wrong when he didn't immediately get up.

"Chase?" Foreman was the first one to him. He went to one knee , flipping his lab-coat out of the way, and gently rolled Chase to his back. His worry increased when he saw that the fair-skinned man's face was pinched in pain. Chase's held his hands close to his chest. They were balled into tight shaking fists and it didn't take a doctor to figure out that was the location of the sudden pain.

A strangled scream was held back by Chase's clenched jaw, only a dull keening sound being allowed out through his nose. His breathing hitched and though he fought to hold it back the next scream made it out. It was blood curdling and painful to listen to, as though the pain he felt was passed to those who heard. Eyes closed tightly against the tearing discomfort, face strained in a frozen relief of agony, he missed the sight of wounds spontaneously forming at his wrists.

Cameron, and Foreman didn't notice at first, too alarmed by Chase's cries. It was the smell of blood and the red smears that alerted them. Foreman pried Chase's hands away from his chest and held him down just beyond his elbows. With his arms spread out and the blood flowing out of the two raw and painful-looking wounds at Chases' wrists, House recognized the similarity to another image. He felt Cameron dart by him as she went for help and supplies.

Going to one knee once reaching the side of his agonized fellow, House simply stared, eyes taking in everything. He didn't pay heed to the alarm in Foreman's eyes. He only saw Chase's eyes open suddenly and stare upwards. He should have been seeing a view of Foreman over his head, but the slightly blank, slightly awed expression was evidence that Chase's mind and sight were elsewhere.

And that scent persisted. In fact it was stronger now. Carrying his weight heavily on one hand down on the carpet to make up for his bad leg, House leaned over to sniff at Chase. Foreman's brows furrowed further. Trust House to be weird and unhelpful in an already weird situation.

The flowery scent was near Chase but not quite on him. House moved to the wrist nearest him and smelt near the wound. The scent was stronger and mixed heavily with the scent of blood. It was as though Chase's wounds were the source of the pleasant odour.

The arrival of Cameron and two nurses displaced House from Chase's side. They efficiently dressed the wounds, which went all the way through one side of Chase's wrists to the other. In mere moments Chase was on a stretcher and wheeled away. Cameron went with them leaving Foreman and House in the conference room where the carpet was now stained with both House's and Chase's blood.

After several seconds of charged, uncomfortable silence and with the smell of flowers still softly teasing their olfactory senses, House moved to the white board. Foreman assumed it was for a differential diagnosis session with just the two of them about what had just happened.

"What the hell causes wounds like that to suddenly appear on someone?" His voice was tight and too loud in the silent room. House was already writing the answer on the board. He finished, capped the marker and walked out.

Foreman read the one word written there.

STIGMATA.

**End Chapter 4 ****Marks of Claim**


	6. Pain of Body or Soul

A/N: Sorry for the delay. Got a little busy these past weeks. And thanks a bunch for the reviews and comments! I'm glad there are some people enjoying it. :)

**Chapter 5 – Pain of Body or Soul**

Foreman ran to catch up with House who was more than halfway to the room where Cameron was directing nurses and another doctor to help her with the deep, damaging wounds. Silent and still in the middle of the chaos was the patient, who stared up at the ceiling, expression unchanged for several minutes. House left the emergency medicine to Cameron and the other personnel. He was more interested in Chase's face. It looked as if he was high, or not quite aware of his body. He floated above it all. And House actually pinpointed the moment that awareness returned.

His face tightened into a grimace. His eyes closed. A cry left his lips when something touched the wound in his left arm. It burned and ached terribly. All the way up his forearm he felt the pain of that single wound. He could feel his pulse in his arm pumping blood out of his body. Despite the noise, the people yelling over each other, he could hear the sounds of the scarlet droplets splattering in thin round pools on the floor.

He floated again for a moment, then the pain returned with a vengeance and he barely managed to bite back a scream. Hands fell on him, pushing him down, keeping him from jerking around as they tried to help him. Chase opened his glassy eyes. At a voice's insistence his head lolled in an uncoordinated fashion to look to his left. A nurse, one he recognized, was speaking to him. Meaningless platitudes only breathed to try and keep him calm through the agony. It wasn't nearly enough.

"Would somebody give him something for the pain?" House demanded.

"I already did," Cameron responded without looking.

"Well then give him more," Foreman instructed.

"I did that too!"

Chase didn't hear a breath of the snippy conversation. His attention had focussed on one of the people holding him down. The androgynous being's expression was soft, hopeful and the touch was warm even if the hands were light as air.

Another differently warm touch settled on either side of his face. He slid his eyes up and found another being standing at the head of his bed. Its eyes were dazzling, sparkling with something that might have been tears. Cooling soothing currents flowed over him, prickling his flushed and damp skin. The respite was short. The pain flared and another scream tore out of his throat. It filled the room, echoed in their ears and shook them to their soul.

---H/C---

Hours later it was a shaken Cameron who stepped out of the operating theatre. She didn't usually scrub in for surgeries and she hadn't been there in a medical capacity this time. She'd been there for support, and now was in need of the same.

House had brought a nearby chair over to the vicinity of the OR exit. Foreman guided Cameron to sit in it. She was pale, shaky and silent.

"I guess it didn't go well," House said, not unkindly.

"They…it didn't help…at all," Cameron struggled out.

"What? The anaesthetic, or the surgery."

Cameron swallowed. "Both." Through the gratefully short surgery Chase had been awake and felt everything as the surgeons tried to repair the damage done to the delicate joint that was the wrist before it was too late. She'd been there hoping to distract Chase, to keep his mind off of what they were doing but her mild presence hadn't been enough. The anaesthesiologist had been stumped. Chase had not succumb to any of the potent chemicals he'd been given. The decision to go on and do the absolute minimum –ensure enough blood flow to the hand to prevent ischemic damage. It had been the simplest, most difficult surgery for all of them.

Foreman looked to House who was looking at Cameron.

"Cameron," House addressed.

"What?" she asked dully.

House's eyes narrowed. He grasped his cane a little below the handle and swung at her face, stopping just short. Both Foreman and Cameron jumped.

"What are you doing?" Foreman demanded. Wasn't what she'd been through enough?

House wasn't apologetic. "She wasn't blinking." They both looked down at to see the slender brunette was now blinking and looking more like herself than the zombie she had been a few seconds ago.

The OR doors opened again and two surgeons walked out. "We tried but nothing…took."

House's blue eyes skipped from one to the other and back. "And for those of us who aren't familiar with the language of failure, that means what exactly?"

Both the surgeons were too shook up to be offended. "The stitches slipped out no matter what we did, we couldn't stop the bleeding…we can't do anything for him and…and he's had enough. We can try again in a few days. The blood loss isn't life threatening as long as he's monitored." They didn't mention that he'd be lucky not to lose both his hands if they couldn't intervene in good time.

"Make sure you alert the psychiatric department, when they take him to recovery."

Foreman and Cameron were understandably confused.

"He did this to himself," House enlightened sternly –so much so that Foreman and Cameron didn't say otherwise though they knew that was untrue. The surgeons didn't know any better, though they were a touch suspicious. The surgeon who had done the talking nodded, clearly more together than his colleague, and guided the other away, leaving the remaining diagnostics team alone.

"Why did you tell them that?" Cameron asked.

Foreman squeezed her shoulder and glared up at House. "Because a person on suicide watch can't be discharged no matter what they say. This is just another power play for him."

"Even worse, it's just another medical mystery," House sneered. His retreat from the area was met with relief from both Cameron and Foreman who had enough to deal with, without House making it worse.

---H/C---

The clock was reading nine twenty-six when Dr. James Wilson looked at it again. He'd been in the hospital for an hour, sitting at his desk for twenty minutes. It would have been a normal day but for the exception of one person. Sometimes he went many hours at the hospital without seeing House. However, he should have seen House by now because House almost always consulted with him when there was something twisting his mind into knots. Whatever was going on with Chase was likely doing that.

He hadn't been allowed to see Chase. He'd pulled the situation out of the remaining two diagnostics fellows and immediately Wilson knew that House would be agonizing over it. He'd even written 'STIGMATA' on the white board, and it didn't take a genius or House's best friend to know that House would not leave this case with that diagnosis. Wilson remembered House's rant back when the young evangelical healer had been a patient of his. He remembered how House scoffed at the idea of a miracle, how he'd searched until he'd found an explanation. No doubt he would do the same thing in this case. Filling in the holes he'd called it.

Eventually his path did cross with his House's. Wilson was leaving an examination room after completing a consult, House was just stepping out of the elevator.

"Where have you been?" Wilson asked. It was now past ten.

"Library," House answered, which explained the stack of books under his left arm.

Wilson kept step next to him as House returned to his office, saying as they went, "This isn't quite the time to be feeding your literature habit. I figured you'd be interrogating Chase, trying to get him to denounce his faith or something."

"Faith has nothing to do with this."

"What if it does?"

"It doesn't," House assured with condescending surety as he dumped the books on his desk. "And if it did, it would be more of an issue for you God-fearing types."

"Or proof for you disbelievers," Wilson countered without an ounce of insult. His faith was a tricky thing, as it was for many people. He was modern man. A man of science, a man of facts, and yet at the edge of his mind, sometimes at its forefront, there was his personal God. Perhaps not the one discussed in scriptures or prophesized by followers, just a being that was out there. He supposed, like House had once told him, he might merely be lonely, even when he'd had both a wife and a mistress.

Without further comment Wilson departed, House allowing him to do so though his eyes followed his friend's progression until he was out of sight. It didn't take a second of thought to have him abandoning the books he'd spent some time scouring the Princeton University libraries for. He'd get to them eventually. He wanted to check on Chase.

His arrival at the ICU step down ward wasn't met with the usually moans and groans of the ICU staff. There was already someone there causing the eye-rolls and aggravation that House thought were his trademarks. He would not have expected Foreman to be the one causing them. He was always quite polite with the patients and staff. Cameron was the one to speak her mind (or worse her heart) even when the person didn't want the advice. Chase was the one most likely to speak without thinking or putting any tact into his words. Foreman, the guy from the bad neighbourhood, was almost painfully polite. If it weren't for his clear disdain for the very members of the upper echelon that he now so well emulated, House might have thought that Foreman had had been raised in mansion, or a convent.

"He doesn't need to be tied up," Foreman said too reasonably. House smirked and watched the face of the nurse in front of Foreman become tinged that much more with annoyance. It was always the condescending tone that did Foreman in, even if he was right, or close to it. He'd seen Cameron and Chase roll their eyes and give Foreman withering looks on more than one occasion. But Foreman was Foreman, and for all of his overweening personality, he was smart and could usually put personal feelings aside for the sake of a patient, even if he did so reluctantly. Strangely, House didn't see any reluctance here, and Foreman was arguing for Chase's benefit.

Eyes set to take in even the most understated body language House approached.

"He's on suicide watch. We're having enough trouble with his wounds already. We can't risk him making them worse," the nurse informed.

Foreman sighed in frustration, wanting to put an end to House's deception but not willing to risk House's wrath. "He'll be okay. He won't hurt himself."

The nurse walked away, Foreman's last desperate plea having done nothing to sway her. Foreman sent a long apologetic glance to Chase who didn't even notice it, his eyes on the ceiling.

"Working off some guilt?"

Foreman managed to hide his startle, turning smoothly to face his superior. "What would I have to be guilty about? You're the one he has everyone thinking Chase is suicidal."

"No, I have them thinking he's an idiot. What kind of doctor can't off himself properly?"

"How is he supposed to work with these people after this?"

"Not my problem. So why are you here –sceptical of my diagnosis?"

Foreman shot a look around to make sure no one would here the next part of their conversation. Not to worry. House's arrival only made the ICU nurses less likely to talk to them. The nearest person to them was unconscious. "Even you're sceptical of your diagnosis. Stigmata? You've never accepted anything even remotely spiritual when you consider illnesses."

"Still doesn't explain why you're here," House said, undeterred.

After a long stretch, while House waited expectantly Foreman spoke. "He's a friend—"

"No he's not," House immediately denied. "Maybe, you and Cameron are friends, though barely. You and Chase are colleagues."

"Is this relevant?"

"Yes, because you're guilt is driving your actions, so I'm wondering what's driving your guilt."

Foreman held his posture and his expression under House's scalding gaze. "It's not guilt."

"Right. Let me know when you find an answer that isn't a load of crap," House said to Foreman as he passed. He was at Chase's side with a few quick steps. He put the measly Foreman conundrum out of his mind and focussed on a larger, stranger one.

"Chase," he called softly. Yes, he could do softly.

Aquamarine eyes snapped to House and he frowned. Chase had a morphine drip and the rate was set pretty high. He shouldn't be that alert.

"The pain, how bad?"

The blond man swallowed with difficulty, so much so that House thought he might begin to choke. He didn't and went on to respond in a tight voice. "Bad."

Chase's eyes, intense with pain stood out against his waxen complexion. On the pale canvas of skin his incarnadine lips remained partly open and with each rise and fall of his chest distressing cries of pain were held back.

House pressed the upward pointing arrow on the infuser controlling Chase' morphine drip hoping the higher dose would cross some threshold and begin to help. He waited several seconds but there was no corresponding change in Chase. House examined the ICU captive's wrists. The dressing wrapping the mysterious wounds would need changing soon. A dark dot of blood was already staining the white bandages, on both the inside and back of the wrist –both wrists too.

Leaning over, House again smelt the wound. He could feel at his back the face Foreman was pulling. Not that it mattered to him. What did matter was that the fragrance of flowers was still emanating from the wounds.

"House, what are you doing?"

Both House and Foreman turned their heads to Cameron, House still bent over with his face near Chase's wrist. "Examining the patient with all my senses. I'm going to lick him next. You should get your camera. Probably make you a pretty penny on the net."

Cameron cringed a little but was mostly confused.

"There's a smell of flowers coming from his wrist," House explained quickly, straightening.

"We smelt it in the OR but couldn't tell what it was coming from," Cameron informed.

House nodded sagely. "So what would cause, wounds for no reason, bleeding that doesn't clot, and complete insensitivity to morphine and anaesthetics?" House asked his eyes on Chase's stony and strained face. It was as though he already knew the answer and was simply waiting it out. Did this seminary school dropout believe this was stigmata?

"A coagulopathy," Cameron suggested.

House's eyes narrowed in bother. "Thank you, genius. Which one?"

"Hypnotic suggestion has been known to cause people to think wounds into forming on their body," the neurologist offered.

"Von Willebrand disease," Cameron suggested, picking a bleeding disorder.

"Explains the bleeding but not the sudden wound formation, or the lack of effect the drugs he's been given," Foreman countered.

"It stays," House decreed, still not looking at Cameron or Foreman. "Foreman, write these down. We'll cross them off as we go along. I'd tell Cameron to do it but I think it might be sexist, giving her the secretarial job."

Cameron shook her head minutely but let the comment go. Foreman went to the nurse's station and found a piece of paper and a pen. He wrote down the two suggestions and added cancer to the list. Leukemia could cause bleeding and clotting problems.

"Could be some sort of skin ulcer…" Cameron said. It was a stretch. House didn't shoot it down though, so it went on the short list.

Cameron and Foreman began blurting out numerous possible diseases and syndrome that could account for Chase's strange symptoms. Nothing quite fit everything, forcing Foreman to write the suggestions in columns relating to the symptoms they did explain. Eventually the two physicians exhausted their mental encyclopaedias of medical information. They turned to House who was still staring at Chase.

Foreman glanced at Cameron but she was now staring at House. More accurately she was staring at House's hand. It was resting half on the soft but firm strap securing Chase to the bed just below his elbow and half on Chase's forearm. It had been there since House had finished his examination of the injuries. House apparently didn't notice and Chase was practically delirious with pain, so he didn't notice either.

Was it a gesture intended to give comfort or convey sympathy? Two things many assumed House to be unable to do, or at least unwilling.

"House?" Foreman's voice brought the diagnostician's attention back to them. The hand that had been on Chase fell away, House still not noticing its former location, or perhaps just not self-conscious enough to comment on it.

He nodded and looked at the paper in Foreman's hand. "We have some place to start. Blood tests."

"Dermographia," came a faint and unexpected suggestion. They all looked at Chase who was focused as much as he could at the moment on them. They'd been talking about him as if he hadn't been there and indeed for a long stretch of minutes he hadn't been. His mind had drifted into some distant place where the pain was less overwhelming.

"Add it to the list," House instructed, back in his newly acquired habit of talking to Cameron and Foreman while looking at Chase. He was pleased to see that Chase, despite his experiences, was still willing to give medical science a chance. Only if it failed, as Chase expected it would in this case, would he grudgingly accept the diagnosis given by his faith.

When nothing more was said Foreman left to get the blood vials they would need. Cameron left a moment later to do some research. Perplexingly reluctant to leave Chase's beside, House stayed for a minute more before forcing himself away.

Back in the conference room Cameron arrived to find they had a guest, one who had a particular interest in the fresh bloodstains on the floor. Cameron paused just inside the doorway and stared for a moment at the man clad all in black. He hadn't heard her enter. Her eyes widened when the greying man leaned down to smell above one of the fresh bloodstains.

"Can I help you with something?" she asked more loudly than necessary, wanting to shock the weirdo. Said weirdo quickly stood and faced the petite doctor, and revealed himself to be a priest. The white square visible of collar contrasted sharply with the rest of his black ensemble.

"Oh! Excuse me. I was walking by when a scent caught my attention."

Cameron didn't comment. She walked further in, disbelievingly eying the priest even though his story was believable given what she had witnessed.

Seeing that she wasn't going to say anything the clergyman went on. "Could you perhaps tell me, whose blood is this?"

Cameron's chin raised, her suspicion increasing. She saw the older man's eyes glance left for only a split second. She followed the likely path of his gaze and it settled on the whiteboard where House's early, religious diagnosis was still blazed across the barren surface in black marker. Looking back at the Father, Cameron told him the patient was unavailable.

"Are you sure? This might be more an investigation for the Church," he suggested prudently.

"And what can the Department of God do that the Department of Diagnostics can't?" A gruff male voice asked from behind the priest.

Unperturbed he threw his response over his shoulder. "Save souls." The way he said it, it was a suggestion, almost a question that urged House to either agree or disagree. House did neither. He went to the board, avoiding with little extra thought the blood on the carpet, and began writing down the various ideas his team had come up with.

The pastor watched and when House was done he pointed to 'dermographia'. "This suggestion from a ex-disciple of yours," House challenged.

"Not 'ex', just lost," was the reply in the same unshakeable calm.

"We'll see."

"Yes, eventually." The Priest gave a benevolent smile that House wanted to smack off his face with his cane. He began for the exit but just before it he looked back at the two doctors (he assumed the tall unshaven man was a doctor). "That scent, lovely isn't it?" The knowing tone of his voice increased the severity of House's glare. The black clad man left with a smile.

"Make sure they keep members of organized and unorganized religions away from Chase," House said going back to the board.

"How am I supposed to do that? Leave a standing order?"

"I don't care how you do it. Just don't let priest, nun, padre, Imam, rabbi, not even a choir boy near him."

Cameron wanted to tell him he was being paranoid but she couldn't. Even in her, the one who didn't prescribe to any organized religion, there was a wariness of them. Not of what some almighty being might do, but rather what the man, whoever he might be, could do when something concerned or endangered his belief. Ironically, neither House nor Cameron truly feared almighty beings, only some of their followers.

---H/C---

Despite attempts to keep the situation quiet, chatty nurses would always be chatty nurses, and thus news of Chase's condition began to circulate. In moments of lucidity Chase heard the low murmurs of people discussing him and noticed the looks he was given, sometimes as they passed by his bed or more often, from across the way. He was unconcerned. The restraints just below his elbows were what really bothered him. They prevented any escape. He couldn't even get up to go to the washroom without a large, male nurse or orderly going with him to make sure he didn't hurt himself. There was always the bed pan or catheter but he'd refused.

It was all House's fault. Damn that man!

Self inflicted wound? How the hell would he be able to stab himself in the wrist with one hand and then use that injured limb to stab his other wrist? Did that make any sense? The ceiling didn't have any answers on it, so Chase could only assume that it was everyone else who had lost their mind and not him. Or maybe House was really that scary.

However he'd been imprisoned in this situation, it didn't change the fact that with each passing moment his hope was dwindling. He'd always hoped that there was a reason behind all this. He believed that if anyone could find it, House could. Now going on sixteen hours since the beginning of this in the conference room, Chase felt his faith in a scientific explanation fading. He wasn't thrilled with what that left behind.

All these past hours he'd been floating, drifting. He'd seen things, seen people that he knew it was impossible for him to see, yet he knew that tomorrow the newspaper would show him just how true these bizarre visions were. And to make things even stranger, when his mind went on these sojourns without his body actually leaving the hospital, he was beginning to feel another presence or something next to him. Yet every time he turned there was only darkness, or sky, or ocean, or more people, or the bed in the ward next to him. It was all quite disconcerting, so when his colleagues had come by only to get more samples from him and had not a smidgen of good news to share, his spirits had sunk that much lower. There was no solution in sight.

Wilson was at his side.

Chase stared up at the brown-haired doctor and could not remember the man walking in or approaching him. Still, a blink, and there he was. Maybe the morphine was finally having an effect, even if it was only to make him a little loopy.

"How you holding up?" Wilson asked softly.

Chase blinked slowly in response. He didn't have the energy to speak at the moment. When the pain from his wrists waxed it took most of his strength to keep from screaming or crying. He also hadn't eaten in over twenty-four hours. He wasn't hungry but it was probably contributing to his weakness.

"Hang in there. They'll figure something out. And you know House; he won't stop until he has an answer." Chase noted the Wilson described House's obstinacy as a good thing. The oncologist did know House the best of anyone Chase was knew of (except perhaps Mrs. Warner) so Chase felt inclined to trust Wilson's judgement in regards to House's personality. Still, inclination or not, Chase was tired of being poked and prodded and discussed even if he couldn't hear what they were saying about him. He wanted to go. He gathered the strength and told Wilson as much.

Wilson didn't look surprised at the request, though his expression clearly conveyed that he thought the decision was lacking in wisdom. "That's not a good idea." His tone was so reasonable it was hard not to agree. "Your…injuries haven't even clotted yet," Wilson said with a glance down at the recently-changed dressing. He gave no voice of his own internal debate. He held onto his small piece of evidence, not yet willing to share it, perhaps not ever. He wasn't sure what to make of it, so he waited for the tests, scans and medical textbooks to be exhausted. "Just wait a little while longer."

Chase shook his head. "Please. I have a friend. House probably told you about him."

Oh, yes –_the_ _friend_. Wilson's eyebrows raised in a brief admittance of his state of knowledge regarding that "friend".

"He's around somewhere. He'll help. Please."

Wilson didn't give it any thought. He was already shaking his head. "You need to be here, Chase," Wilson said comfortingly. It wasn't what Chase wanted to hear. He would have shaken off the hand that was laid gently on his shoulder but his didn't want to risk aggravating his torn flesh. And the touch was also somewhat welcome as it was the first bit of normal human contact he'd had since he'd been brought there. The nurses were efficient and quiet when they went about tending to him. Cameron and Foreman were distant, awkward, and preoccupied with the mystery. House hadn't come back at all, and before Wilson it had been his touch on Chase's arm that provided the only recent memory of comforting contact.

"Hang in there," Wilson reiterated and gave a gentle squeeze. Chase watched him exit then turned his eyes back to the ceiling. Before he knew it he was drifting again.

---H/C---

In the conference room three tired doctors sat at the table. Half-eaten and now cold containers of take-out food were strewn all over. House picked up a wrapper that was on the x-ray film. He leaned back in his chair while balling up the refuse. He eyed the garbage next to the counter with the coffee maker and then threw his garbage ball. Cameron's head turned to follow the arc of the projectile, perhaps only because it had come so close to her head. The balled-up wrapper hit the metal rim of the garbage but bounced away. Cameron, usually the one to complain if somebody left even a used coffee mug in the sink, didn't do more than blink at the miss or at the mess of other pieces of garbage littering the floor around the bin. House's aim had been off in the last few hours. Even Foreman had missed a couple, though not nearly as many as House. The silent competition between House and Foreman had proceeded uncommented until House had missed a few in a row and Foreman continued with his streak.

"Well you people are good a basketball. It's been a while since I played," House made his excuse, to which Foreman just smirked and shook his head.

Currently Foreman barely had the presence of mind to even notice that House was missing, and pretty badly too. The darkness outside was trying to lull him into sleep. It was just approaching two and he was drained. They'd had tough cases before. They'd pulled all-nighters looking for obscure clues in the lab work to tell them the cause of the strange symptoms. Really the situation wasn't unfamiliar. It was the consistent lack of progress that was wearing them down so quickly.

"This doesn't make any sense," Cameron mumbled, tossing away a set of lab results in irritation. "All the clotting factors are normal, but he's not clotting." That was the riddle on which Cameron had focussed. She ignored the issue of the morphine not working, ignored the sudden appearance of the wounds, ignored anything that didn't help. Usually House would be scolding her about ignoring symptoms. He wasn't. He was doing the same.

The whiteboard silently mocked them. They'd written down all the symptoms on one side and all the possible diagnoses on the other. The diagnosis side was nearly empty. The symptoms side was full, even without the soft, personality symptoms that House had noticed recently. He also excluded the precognition incident. House was half-afraid that if he told Cameron and Foreman about it, they would give up and chalk this whole thing up to some sort of mystical force. Even with 'STIGMATA' written across the top of the board and the unusual symptoms, there was still nothing that strictly indicated this was anything but a difficult case. House didn't want to risk giving them that evidence. Because in isolation most of the symptoms had an explanation. Together they made no sense.

"How can the blood from the wound have two blood types but the blood from his veins has only his?" Foreman asked. For the moment this was the puzzle on which his mind was stuck. Unlike Cameron who was being oddly consistent, Foreman was looking at each mystery and moving on when his frustration grew to too great.

"How can you two still be here when I told you to leave hours ago?" House asked eying his fingers. Weird how at times like this, those digits became so interesting.

"You want us to just go?" Cameron said.

House looked to her. "I don't really care, since neither of you are being particularly useful today. What I'm a little curious to hear is why you're both suddenly showing so much loyalty to Chase."

"It's not loyalty. He's our patient."

House wasn't going to accept Foreman's explanation. "We've gone home before when patients were still without a diagnosis. What's so different this time? Don't say the mystery. That's my excuse." House glanced back and forth at them. They didn't seem at all moved by the inquiry. Their eyes remained wherever they'd been fixed before.

"He's our friend—"

"Ennnhh!" House made a loud, obnoxious buzzing sound. "I'm sorry, that's the wrong answer. Thanks for playing. Contestant number two?" Pretending he was holding a microphone House held out his fist to Foreman. Foreman remained silent. The buzzing noise came quickly again. "Oooh! Contestant number two ran out of time."

"Can we please just get back to the case?" Exasperation a fatigue weighed down Foreman and his voice.

"Eager to write an article on the explanation of stigmata, Foreman? Are you really that eager to undermine the beliefs of millions?"

"House, enough," Cameron snapped. They were all tired and cranky. Neither she nor Foreman was in the mood to take House's abuse. Maybe they should have left when he told them to.

House took mild amounts of pity on them. "Go home. I'm not kidding." With the help of the table House stood. With the help of his cane he left. Cameron watched him go drearily. For several seconds after, both she and Foreman remained at the table.

Foreman opened his mouth to say something but must have thought better of it because he just got up, took his things and left. Cameron waited a few minutes before doing the same.

As House made his journey to the ICU, unwilling to call it a night. Chase had suddenly become far too interesting for him to sleep soundly. He was sure there were things about Foreman and Cameron he didn't know either. Thing was he didn't really care to know. Maybe it was just timing. Maybe it was the imminent threat that Chase was just going to vanish. This Mayes character had shown up and earlier Chase had gone to Cuddy and demanded to be let out of his contract. House had gotten half an earful over the offence Cuddy presumed he'd committed to pushed Chase to quit. It would have been a complete earful but she'd allowed him to get back to the case at hand.

The main light in the small ward was still on when House arrived. The lights over the patients' beds had been turned off to allow them to sleep even if Chase, unlike the other two, was not taking advantage of the opportunity. He looked down on the pale face. He turned on the light above the bed with the switch on the wall and immediately the harsh white lighting filled the small area between the two curtains separating the beds. The light reflected off Chase's pallid skin. The nurses' notes said nothing about a fever. House guessed that it was a parasympathetic response to the pain, cold sweat. To confirm he laid his hand, palm down, on the young man's head. It was warm, but not feverish. Since his hand was already there and because he knew that if he could Chase would have brushed his hair back from his forehead, House did it for him.

"Chase," House called gently as he removed his hand from the man's head. Chase's eyes shifted to him a moment before House was going to address him again. House skipped the inquiry into his state. He could tell just by looking at his face that the pain was on its upswing. "I need a better history –a complete history." Even as he said it House knew he was fishing for more information about Chase. He wasn't anywhere near believing that what was happening to Chase was anything other than an unusual presentation of some illness or disorder. He was actually leaning towards hypnotic suggestion –mind over body. Maybe he should have had Foreman stick around.

"You've given up," Chase said weakly.

House shook his head. "No. Just need different information for a new hypothesis." Chase waited for the question. "Has this happened before?"

It was a more complex question than House knew. It took Chase several seconds to come up with an accurate answer. "Sort of."

That actually didn't sound very accurate at all so he went on to elaborate; though doing so would take more energy than Chase thought he had available. "Before it was…it was just pain, no blood."

House didn't frown at this revelation but he wasn't pleased either. "Things that should have been made known earlier." Chase just looked at him and House imagined the shrug Chase wanted to give but couldn't. "What about all that stuff last night?"

"What stuff?" Chase actually looked confused. That in addition to the intense discomfort already written on his face made the whole look upsetting. He didn't know what House was referring to and House took that as a bad sign. He really should have kept Foreman around.

"Last night your friend, Warren, drugged you and…" How was he to describe the disturbing episode?

Chase remembered the feeling of the drug overtaking him. He remembered Warren's apology and he remembered a nightmare. After that he'd awoken in the hospital with Foreman at his side.

"You have a tattoo on your back," House suddenly announced, giving up on the details of the night before and focussing on the smaller simpler things. "When did you get it?"

"…fourteen." He pursed his lips to keep from saying more and also to keep from moaning aloud. A flare of agony made him shiver.

House watched, outwardly undisturbed. When he thought Chase might be able to speak again he went on. "Last night Mayes, said something; a prayer or a spell."

"…he didn't…do this…" Such an accusation hurt him to hear, even if he wouldn't believe it.

"Why did you leave the seminary?"

Chase's eyes began to drift shut. He pushed out the answer, the short version. "They asked me to serve and obey Him…I couldn't." And then House was as good as alone, Chase having fallen into an unnaturally abrupt sleep. Maybe the pain or the morphine had finally kicked his brain into unconsciousness. Upon inspection his watch indicated the time was two fifty-eight. House always kept his watch running slow, two minutes slow. Thus the actually time was three am on the dot. A chill poured down his spine.

House glanced around. Nothing sinister seemed to be happening. The nurse's shift change had already passed. So Chase fell asleep. It wasn't something to be suspicious about. House tried to wake him.

"Chase, wake up." He gently shook him. When there was no response he shook him harder. Still there was nothing. House left for a moment to find a needle then he returned to stick Chase in the toe with is. Chase flinched, tugging his foot away from the uncomfortable stimulus. Still, he didn't wake. Mind racing trying to determine what kind of state Chase was in House disposed of the syringe in the receptacle. His next test was by far the most gruesome of all. He grabbed Chase's nearest wrist. He hesitated a moment, then squeezed.

His efforts were rewarded with a grunt and a pinched expression on the damp face, but he didn't wake. Housed eased his grip, finally letting go. He looked at his hand, at the smear of fragrant, crimson blood across his palm and fingers.

Chase seemed resigned to whatever fate had in store for him. Whatever prior experiences he might have had, likely led to his acceptance. House wasn't ready to call it quits yet. When had he ever?

---H/C---

The next day House was in a bad mood, having spent an achy night in the lounge chair in his office and then being woken by Wilson that morning. That in itself would not have accounted for such a terrible mood. It was the conversation he'd been thrust into, when his brain was still half lost in sleep, that really soured him.

Wilson had argued for the opposition! Not something he'd never done before. Wilson had always sort of been House's conscience since House's own was as conniving as the man himself. The difference here was that the opposition was religion, faith, God. Wilson knew how he felt about those.

After chasing his friend out of his sight he'd found Cameron and Foreman in the conference room going over the results of the EEG that House had done that night. He'd sworn he'd fallen asleep with those in his hand.

"He's asleep," Foreman had said with all the certainty due a neurologist who was looking at the EEG of a sleeping person.

"Then why won't he wake up?" House had posed. He hadn't expected an answer. He'd gotten his coffee, which tasted terrible, then headed back to his office. He'd pushed over the insufferable whiteboard on his way, the sound of it crashing to the carpet and hitting something on its way down momentarily lifting his weary spirit.

So overall it was a poor way to begin a day that only went downhill from then on. The loosing struggle against Chase's unknown ailment left House as the worst choice of company. He pulled down the mood of anybody he came in contact with, Foreman and Cameron most of all. They in turn, ruined the moods of those they came in contact with and the cycle continued until half the hospital staff was snapping at each other. It also might have been the miserable weather outside. It was hard to say which had more of an effect –House on the rampage, or cold rain, dark clouds, and frigid wind.

By noon the sky had cleared and House was ready to throw a fit; and he did when Cuddy tried to reprimand him for his poor behaviour. That's how he earned the four hours of extra clinic duty for the next week, which he would never end up doing. By two o'clock the diagnostics department was about ready to combust with the tempers and egos scraping against each other. The last straw was when a bouquet of flowers in a vase was delivered. Cameron brusquely signed for them and the delivery man escaped, chased out by the silent and angry stares.

Leaning against the glass wall House spoke first. "Who are they from?" He wanted to know who thought he could be consoled by some stupid plants, so that he knew who to strike first.

Cameron read the card aloud. "'These are the usual culprits for the smell you're probably becoming quite confused about. Jasminum Officinale. Semper Fidelis, Father Alex DeMarco.'" Cameron flipped the small card over checking that there was nothing more written on the other side. She only found the logo for a local flower shop. She glanced at House who was looking even more annoyed than he had been all day, and then back to the plant.

The stems of delicate ferns had been trimmed by the florist to create a layered background of rich green below the canopy of white, five-lobed blossoms floating on top. It was a lovely little arrangement, and when she did move to smell the flowers, they had the same sweet scent as the blood from Chase's wrist. She was about to say as much when the vase of flowers was snatched, literally, from under her nose. Cameron and Foreman watched with trepidation as House walked into his office then out to the balcony. Just as they realized what he was going to do, he did it.

One hard throw sent the light blue vase with the delicate flowers sailing into the air. It landed in the parking lot, shattering on the hood of a black car. Most of the flowers had fallen out during the flight and drifted to the ground after the wind let them go.

House shook off the water that had sloshed onto his arm from the vase. He returned to the conference room, to the wide-eyed stares of his employees.

"What?"

**End Chapter 5**


	7. The Unknown Self

A/N: My apologies for not posting sooner. Life was very hectic this past month and I wasn't able to get any editing done. Hopefully, interest hasn't been completely lost, and hopefully things will settle down enough to allow me to finish posting the rest of the story in good time. All your questions should be answered as the story continues. Thanks for all the great responses! ^^

**Chapter 6****: The Unknown Self**

---H/C---

He was walking with someone. They were at his left side but he couldn't turn left to look at them and when he turned right he couldn't go far enough around. Whoever was there remained faceless and constant. It was the waves of the ocean at his feet that drew most of his attention. It was peaceful here, though he knew that at all its other shores there were masterpieces of unhappiness.

"Robin, what are you looking at?" From his right, his tall friend came up next to him and followed his gaze out the window. "You're father's not here yet, is he?"

Robbie shook his head and stared up at this best-friend his other constant companion.

"Well, he'll miss a great game." Warm brown eyes looked down at him and the much loved face brightened with a grin. "But I'll be there." He handed the black and white football in his hands to the little boy. "I'll always be there."

"No you won't," Robert corrected. He took the ball, small hands fumbling with it for a second before getting a good grip.

Warren still grinned, not hearing or not taking him seriously. "Come on. You don't want to be late." He ruffled the bright blond hair and turned from the room. Robert didn't follow immediately. He looked back at the painting and wished that he could spend another day at the beach with his parents. In this painting there was a storm on the horizon and it was those days on the beach he liked the best. The impending arrival of the distant and, at the time, quiet tempest had always churned an excitement within him. As the day wore on the sun would become paler, the smell of the air blowing onto shore from the ocean would changed. The atmosphere was charged and ready to erupt in a maelstrom of wind, rain and lightning and thunder. And though he'd never seen the release –they always went home before the storm made landfall –he'd always wondered about the destruction it caused. Especially since when they went back on another day the beach looked very much the same as it had. He liked that something so beautiful and fragile in appearance could withstand the fearsome onslaught he imagined it took.

The stairs were misshapen as he went down them, too steep in some respect, yet he didn't fall. He knew that if he ignored it he would get through it unharmed. He reached the main floor and the world became upright as it was meant to be. His limbs became heavy though, and though he tried to walk quickly he seemed to barely take each step. Getting to the living room was a long and difficult trek and when he arrived he found strangers seated and standing.

"What do you want?"

Their leader stood. "We're looking for Robert."

"He's not here," a voice that sounded like Robert's said but it wasn't him.

"Lying is a sin, you know," the man said. A woman stepped forward as well. A woman who was supposed to be his friend. Her presence evoked a sting of betrayal from a memory he couldn't recall. "You can't choose what you are," the man went on, "or who."

A resounding clap of thunder echoed within the room. Its power and sudden emergence knocked them all to the ground, except for the goat in the corner of the room. It approached. First on all fours, then it stood and walked on its hind legs. Robert wanted to run but his legs were stuck. And try as he might, he couldn't escape.

A burst of light from behind him warmed his back. He turned and could barely hold his eyes against the blinding white light. He couldn't escape that either. His feet were still stuck.

He worried that the clash of these two forces would tear his home apart, when he probably should have been more concerned with the astral ramifications of the conflict. But he was just a man, just one man among many and all he knew was this life, this one struggle. It was his and it was simple, and he would find his way through it if they would just leave him alone.

In a flash of all things, left and right, duty and freedom, the clash was brought to a tense simmer with the appearance of two beings, one facing side each, holding back the wrath and uproar to leave a small patch of peace where he was safe for now. They were androgynous, indistinct and familiar those two spectres. He would have approached, touched them, but they turned their heads in unison to him and asked in absolute and overwhelming silence a question that he could not repeat and could not answer. He turned away and grabbed the book, the one he'd been looking for. It felt heavy and old in his hand. He clutched it to his chest as he ran as fast and as far as he could. The conflict was left behind.

---H/C---

House had forgotten about Henderson. He'd forgotten about the woman, the flower, the break-in, the blackmail. He'd forgotten about the message he had covertly slipped between the psychiatrist's charts. He'd forgotten Chase's warning. He'd also forgotten that Henderson was the head of the psychiatric department in the hospital. Perhaps asking for Chase to be put on suicide watch hadn't been the smartest move. That flower really was going to bite him in the ass.

"What the hell is this?"

House squinted at the rumpled paper in the other man's hand. He contemplated denying it, denying everything.

"Don't deny it, you miserable louse!"

There went that plan. "Name calling? What is this grade school? I thought we were above that?"

"But not above blackmail."

"That's more a high-school level of malice. And it's not blackmail until I ask you for something." House hadn't wanted anything, except to see the other man twist in the web of his own lies. So, he held his newfound knowledge over the man's head, threatening to tell his wife or colleagues but made no request in exchange for the incriminating information.

Aghast, Henderson took half a second to temper his outrage and respond. "Is this just another power play for you?"

"Certainly looks that way," House falsely confirmed. "Now get the hell out of my office before I make an announcement over the PA system." He was in no mood to deal with Henderson. The conundrum of Chase and the mysterious wounds were the owners of all his attention. The mystery of the young lady with the allergies to a certain rare flower, and the doctor whose well-known hobby was growing rare flowers was yesterdays news.

"And stay away from my patient, Doctor House, or Cuddy will be the next person to get a visit from me."

"Just don't give her any flowers."

---H/C---

He tripped over a branch and fell into a small river, more a stream. The book fell out of his grasp and into the water that was too shallow and the current too weak to move it. Soaked, he crawled the short distance through the stream to the ancient tome. The river flowed smoothly around it, wetting the cover and seeping into the pages but like the beach in the storm it withstood and he wasn't worried. He was confused though, when he tried to pick the book up and couldn't. There was another person holding it. Robert stared down at his reflection who also was grasping the precious volume. He tried to pull and his reflection did the same. The book didn't budge.

Robert tilted his head right. His reflection also tilted his head to his right. There was something wrong with that.

"You don't want this," his reflection said and Robert felt himself saying it as well.

"I need to know," Robert responded and though his reflection mouthed the words too they weren't actually his. "I thought I'd be better off not knowing, but I'm not. They won't let me."

"I'm not ready. One man's pain is better than all."

Robert stared at himself. Behind his reflection the trees became a deeper green as slender vines wove their way through the branches. All at once they bloomed and a shelter of white flowers emerged over his head blocking the bright Australian sun. A few blossoms and petals floated down from the trees to dot the ground and some to be carried away by the flowing water. One blossom landed on the cheek of his reflection. Robert reached out to brush it away. He let go of the book with his other hand as well and gave up. He really didn't need to know. He would be like the others.

The tiny patches of sunlight that slipped through the fragile roof of flowers began to grow as the light became more intense and the plants began to burn. Unperturbed, Robert watched it happen behind his reflection in the water and felt burning debris brush against him as it fell. Some fell on him, burning small dots of flesh on his feet, wrists, his back, side and forehead. He lay down in the unchanging stream and soothed his injuries in the cool water. The ache remained but it was less painful. As the sky blinded and the forest burned, he stared up at it all, unmoved, ignorant and content. He closed his eyes and rested.

He awoke from his peaceful reposed with a start. He couldn't sit up. Something was holding down his arms. People rushed to him. He didn't respond to their questions or comments, still trying to collect himself. He remembered the tranquility of a moment ago and even as part of him yearned to go back to it, another part of him revelled in being freed, as though without even knowing it he'd been trying to escape the dream and had suddenly won.

He began to relax. The familiar surroundings of the hospital and a few familiar faces eased his unrest and confusion. The comfort was short-lived. Burning, stinging pain lanced across his back producing a cry more of shock than of pain. Another came and marked him, rending the skin. He tried to get away from it but he was still restrained. His back arched, eyes went wide, and vision went grey. The streaks of pain came in quick succession, almost all at once. It ended as abruptly as it started and Chase laid there, numb in the centre of the chaos he'd caused.

Their pagers went off almost in unison. They didn't spare a glance at their boss before heading to their patient. House levered himself out of the chair and went as well, his pace much more sedate. He arrived just as they were turning Chase onto his side and though he couldn't see what had caused everyone to suddenly pause and gawk, he knew it was bad. The busy motions of nurses and doctors getting what they needed churned the swarm of people and House broke through the eddies to see for himself the damage.

Lash marks criss-crossed the expanse of Chase's back, many of them seeping lightly scented blood. Perhaps more unusual than the scent and even the appearance of this lacerations was the flow of the blood. Chase was on his left side. The blood should have been flowing down the span of his back to bed. Instead it flowed down the length of his back as though he were sitting up.

House stepped back to allow the proper attention to reach his fellow. He watched and thought furiously, and in vain.

"Maybe it's time for a consult," Wilson suggested as he came up beside the diagnostician.

"You think it's cancer?" House asked, purposely misconstruing what Wilson was trying to say.

"I think you know what it is. You just won't accept it."

"I think you're afraid that the real explanation won't be the one you want, so you won't even let me try and find it."

Wilson shook his head and looked away, exasperated even after a short time with House. "I'm afraid you're going to kill him by withholding the treatment that he needs, treatment you can't give."

"So we should hand him over to people who consider this to be a gift from their god?" House asked angrily. "I guess you may want it, but for my birthday, don't get me pain and suffering." House quickly took his leave. He wasn't helping being there and watching Chase dazed and pained wasn't helping him. Usually the arrival of a new symptom would have him metaphorically rubbing his hands together and cackling (maybe literally depending on his mood). More symptoms narrowed down the possible causes. In this case House didn't like where the symptoms pointed.

---H/C---

As the small hands of clocks in the eastern time zone approached the ten Chase was still a prisoner of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. In consideration of the injuries on his back he was allowed to lie on his side. They'd generously freed him of the restraints as well. There were still a lot of rumours making their own rounds through the hospital but they no longer included self-mutilation, not that Chase cared. He couldn't escape. He'd tried and was caught.

"So predictable." Not 'caught 'cha!' Not 'Freeze!' Not 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' Predictable, as if his only purpose was to make sure he was still amusing to his boss.

More annoying than House, were House's subsequent actions. He'd called security, ordered them to take the patient back to his room and make sure he stayed there. As Chase was being escorted away House had loudly announced that he was going home. Chase had hoped that he would fall going down the stairs where he'd just cornered the would-be escapee.

So now security was popping by every so often. There was no pattern and even if there was, the nurses were also on alert. It would take a freaking miracle for him to get out of here.

"Hello Robbie."

That wasn't his miracle. Or maybe it was. It had been days since he'd last seen Warren. Before that it had been seven years. The last few days had been harder.

Mayes was much better company than anyone else who'd been by to see him. Foreman had come. Chase had pretended to be asleep. He wasn't sure if Foreman bought it or simply took it as an easy way out of the social nicety he wasn't really enthusiastic about anyway. Cameron had been next, about half an hour later. She didn't buy his sleeping performance and had forced the conversation he didn't want. She'd offered to stay with him. He'd declined, now resigned to his nightmare with hope of a medical answer having fled him, and made it clear that he preferred solitude. When she left there was something very close to pity in her eye. She might have thought he made a mistake turning her away. Chase didn't see himself regretting it any time soon.

Mayes glanced over his shoulder in an anxious manner. "So…uh, you ready to get out of here?"

Sitting up Chase nodded. With a brief smile Mayes handed him a purple set of scrubs.

"Stole them from some closet. There were plenty. One pair won't be missed."

Chase didn't need convincing. It took some help to get the clothes on. Though there was enough blood flow making it to his hands that they weren't necrotizing, the damage to his writs still left his hands nearly useless. Mayes helped with his the pants too, slipping up Chase's lower legs while he was still seated then having him stand to pull them up the rest of the way.

"Just like old times," Mayes said fondly, gently brushing his thumb over a lightly stubbled cheek. "C'mon."

Chase slipped on the flimsy slippers the hospital had given him. "What about security, and the nurses?"

"They're taken care of." Mayes checked that the coast was clear before stepping into the corridor. "There's a curious white fog in the diagnostic department," Mayes told him, sounding far too pleased. Revenge and diversion all in one –it didn't get any better than that.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing that he doesn't deserve."

That was probably true, Chase figured but he still wasn't entirely pleased.

The break out went smoothly. Even with the few close calls necessitating that they hide around corners it was a fairly simple getaway. Weakened from the blood loss and the minimal nutrition over the last two days, Chase was dizzy and tired before they even made it to the car, his car actually. The light blue Oldsmobile was just down the way, parked next to the sidewalk that rimmed the hospital.

"Stay, here," Mayes said and allowing Chase to rest against the brick wall next to the bare metal side-door from which they exited. It was inconspicuous, hidden by the manicured foliage of the hospital, so it was a reasonable place for Chase to stay a short while. Mayes went to get the car and nearly made it.

"Where is he?"

Mayes, froze and let his shoulders slump. "Dr. House," he greeted as the man emerged from a patch of darkness left by one of the burnt out lamps. "Late night?"

He'd been paged about a problem with his office. His arrival to the hospital had been swift. Not because he was worried but because he was nearby; in the theological library doing research. "I'm not in the mood for this! Where is he?" A lesser man might have been scared –if not by the tone then by the object in his right hand that could quickly be turned into a weapon.

"You know where he is. You're the one who imprisoned him in the hospital. If he's lost it's your fault."

"It's not my fault if you kidnapped him."

"I wouldn't need to kidnap him. He would come with me voluntarily." Mayes returned House's glare as the unkempt man walked past him. "Pisses you off, doesn't it."

House swore he'd never heard a more annoying Australian accent. What was it about this guy that screamed to him 'hit me'!

"You don't like being second to any one."

"Can you keep your dodgy psychoanalysis to yourself? I don't think my ego can take it," he deadpanned. The vivid blue eyes scanned the surroundings. He set off towards the side exit he knew was hidden behind some tall shrubs. With his cane to move the plants out of the way and the LED light on his keychain to illuminate, House searched the brush. "Aha!" House quickly stepped back out to the side walk and observed Mayes. "I didn't actually find anything. You're expression tells me I should have. So either Chase can make himself invisible too, or he's slipped off somewhere." House stared at Mayes, daring him to deny it.

"He couldn't have gone far."

House nodded slightly in agreement and set off in the most likely direction. The one that lead away from the hospital entrance. It was a dark path so it wouldn't have been hard to sneak past unnoticed while House and Mayes had argued.

Mayes went along with him. They searched in silence for several minutes before Mayes felt the need to set things straight. "You've had your chance. When we find him he's leaving with me."

"Leaving to where? What's he trying to get away from? Far as I know there's nowhere far away enough to escape your God," House replied, sounding not even vaguely interested, but he was.

"'My God'," Mayes repeated irritated by House's words. He huffed out a mirthless laugh. "Why don't you let me worry about that? Robert is my concern. You don't want him anyway."

"You can't tell me what you don't know."

"So you do want him. Or you just want what you can't have." Mayes didn't allow House to respond. He walked quickly away choosing another island of tall bushes to explore. House glared at his back. He was about to go in a direction that took him further away from Mayes, needing to put some distance between them before they came to blows, but he stopped. On the ground a few paces in front of him was a dark patch in grey cement. It stood out even in the dusk and poor illumination of the campus streetlamps. The small area was quickly lit up with the keychain flashlight. The concrete was the expected grey. The stain was the expected red. Fresh too –it smeared when House pushed the tip of his cane through it.

Aiming his light forward a little farther, House found another similar stain and farther ahead there were more. It was a trail. House followed it, stepping alongside it, measuring the distance between each bloody splotch. The distance was just right for footsteps. Perhaps a little close together, but he knew Chase wasn't in the best shape at the moment. House followed the trail up a small set of stairs on the terrace of the quaint little courtyard where the trail led. He found a bloody mark on the brass railing. Then he looked up.

The statue before him stood out in the little available light, it's figure catching his eye before that of his fellow laying under it. Arms outspread in welcome, clothes draping gracefully from her form, a figure House assumed to be a depiction of the Virgin Mary was captured timelessly in stone. Her head was tilted a touch to her left and her sightless eyes still managed to compel the a gentle, welcoming expression.

"Robin!" Mayes rushed past House who'd paused to stare at the statue, and tended to the unconscious young man lying below its feet. "Robbie, you'll be okay," Mayes assured gathering the tense body into his arms. Mayes was about to pick him up. He stopped and took notice of something disconcerting and new.

In his feet, one in each limb, passing all the way through were new wounds. A steady trickle of blood flowed from them. Dismayed, Mayes held Chase a little tighter. A soft grunt accompanied the effort required of him to pick Chase up. He ducked his face in to rest against the blond man's warm cheek. He silently begged, prayed and hoped for this to end.

"Has it rained in the last couple of hours?" House's question came out to the blue.

"No. Why?" Mayes answered barely paying him any attention.

House shook his head in disbelief and held his light to the face of the statue. "Because that isn't normal."

Mayes glanced back, then up at the carved face –the carved, weeping face. From the blank eyes, trickles of water fell. They traced a narrow path over the smooth cheeks, met at the rounded, graceful chin and then fell to the blood-stained ground.

---H/C---

The blue Buick was rather old. In what House assumed was a flight of paranoia Mayes had decided to take it rather than his own rental car. Whatever his reasons House didn't care except that that the seats were less comfortable than most newer vehicles. In what might only be a mild exaggeration House estimated that it was older than the man who owned it. He imagined it was pretty pathetic to pick up a date in this un-pimped ride. Now there was an idea. Maybe Xzibit would come to Princeton to pimp out a pretty white boy's car. Foreman would probably have a conniption.

House looked down at the head lying on his lap. On consideration it wasn't completely fallacious to imagine that a young woman wouldn't mind such an ugly vehicle if it brought a handsome man to her.

Women.

"Chase." House gently tried to wake his fellow. He wasn't sure if this was another strange bout of unconsciousness or just plain old sleep. He poked Chase in the cheek with his finger and called his name again –again, no response. Okay, so not plain old sleep.

"How is he?"

House met Mayes's eyes in the rear view mirror. "I can't tell. He needs to be at a hospital."

"You haven't been able to do anything for him. You had your chance."

"I just need more time."

Mayes struck the steering wheel. House flinched. "There is no more time! This is it. You were his last chance, and now…now we do this my way."

House shook his head and didn't subtract the contempt from his expression when Mayes glanced back at him.

"You're free to leave whenever you like, Doctor House," Mayes informed.

"I don't trust you."

"You don't have to. You aren't my concern."

"Chase does what I do. I don't trust you. He won't trust you."

Mayes laughed. "He doesn't even like you." He refocused his attention to the road, leaving House to smart. In honesty he wasn't pleased that the diagnostician was still around. He'd simply invited himself along by getting in the car and refusing to leave. Mayes knew if need be, he could have overpower Dr. House. He hadn't, and every so often he found himself regretting it. Thankfully it was a regret that he could easily remedy later.

They had just turned onto Chase's street and were a block away when Mayes slowed. After a few seconds he pulled the car off the road and stopped entirely. House copied Mayes in searching the neighbourhood through the windshield. He didn't see anything suspicious.

"What are you waiting for?"

Mayes shook his head, his eyes still darting over the urban landscape. "Something's not right." He breathed heavily through his nose, the agitation creeping up his back. He pulled a face and started the car moving. He made a sharp U-turn. "They're waiting."

"Who?"

"People with plans for Robert."

"What plans?"

Tense seconds passed until finally, "…I don't know."

Fantastic. He was stuck with a half-wit that didn't even know half the plot. On his lap Chase groaned softly. His eyes were pinched closed and his lips were parted for the shallow agitated breaths. He could feel Mayes glance worriedly back while still trying to keep them on the road. House didn't know what to do. Thankfully instinct didn't require knowledge. His right hand was running through the blond tresses before he could think better of it. Chase's head turned away from the touch which put his face brushing against House's pelvis. House couldn't dissimulate the awkwardness of having the young man's face so close to his crotch. His wide eyes gazed warily down but his hand didn't relent in its motions. Unable to escape and unharmed by the touch, Chase relaxed. House wished Chase would turn the other way. Under his clothes his skin tingled with the sensation of an embarrassing touch that only existed in his imagination, so long as Chase didn't turn further into him.

"Where else can we go?"

Pulling his mind from the puerile disquiet, House responded. "Two-two-one Baker Street."

"Is that your place?" Mayes's opposition if it was evident in his voice.

"You have somewhere better?"

Of course he didn't. House's place it was. House had almost given Wilson's address but he needed to regroup at his place. Besides, Wilson's new place was on the eighth floor. There was little chance of them getting to it without being noticed since Chase couldn't walk, even if he were conscious, and his bandages weren't soaked through with blood. If a knocked out bleeding man didn't grab somebody's suspicion then House was Santa Claus.

"Put him on the couch," House instructed. He held the door open for Mayes to carry Chase in. He could add Chase's blood to the list of other bodily fluids that had sullied his couch.

While Mayes got Chase settled House closed the door and took out his phone. Mayes eyed him when he noticed House was making a call. His eyes dared House to call the cops or the ambulance again. House met the challenge unblinking. "Hey, Wilson, come over to my place. Bring the books on my desk with you…Yeah, I know…I'm always five steps ahead. And bring some bandages too…just get over here." He snapped his phone closed. "Oncologists," he complained to Mayes. Perching himself on the armrest of the piece of furniture now occupied by his intensivist, House watched Mayes pace up and down the apartment frantically thinking. He watched the muted apprehension play out in the man's limbs and on the few lines of his face. House would have tripped him if he wasn't so sure that the tall man would punch him, both in retribution and to alleviate his tension.

House nearly sighed in relief when the knock at his door interrupted the silence. Mayes darted to the door and slowly opened it, ready to attack or defend if need be. It wasn't needed. Wilson was about as harmless as they came.

He glanced at the House and the unfamiliar man cautiously as he stepped in. "Where's Chase?"

House tilted his head toward the seat of his couch. Wilson gave House one of his looks; this one saying that he was cleaning up his mess yet again, but this was the last time. It never was.

While Wilson tended to Chase, House kept an eye on Mayes who was keeping a wary eye on Wilson. The oncologist –his role briefly switching to nurse –replaced the soaked bandages that had begun to unwrap and hang loosely on the patient. He was just finished with the right wrist and was about to ask for help getting at Chase's back when House interrupted.

"Don't forget his feet."

Mildly confused Wilson looked up at him. House didn't elaborate so Wilson gingerly unwrapped the dark towel that had been around the blond man's feet and found two more wounds. He must have been staring for several seconds, maybe even minutes at the rounded injuries. He heard distantly House say something. The words escaped his notice but the tone was the typical abrasive one that House usually bore when faced with a situation of which he thought he was in control.

"House!" Wilson interjected suddenly, silencing his friend and preventing the angry retort Mayes had been gearing up to make. "This isn't a puzzle for you anymore. He needs help that you can't give him." Wilson lightly probed the area surrounding the deep red and still bleeding wound, wincing in sympathy even though Chase didn't respond.

"This is exactly a puzzle for me."

"I know how much you enjoy bringing down establishments, but he's suffering."

"No, he's not. He's unconscious…or asleep…or something."

"You don't have a clue, House."

"Neither do you. You believe in remissions and miracles. What kind of miracle is it to suffer without a cause?"

"You've been suffering for years for no reason! You tell me!"

"Enough!" Both Wilson and House were silenced by the low, accented and yet forceful command. "Dr. House, your methods have failed…"

"Don't sound so happy about it," House mocked under his breath.

"…And we're not going to look for help anywhere else."

The two doctors (that were conscious) spared a second to glance at each other then to Mayes. His desperation and anxiety were showing through his determination and his fierce protectiveness of their colleague. Their confusion pertaining to the source of his fierce emotion was prominent, but more so was his resolve that Chase would not, absolutely and under no circumstances, see a man of faith.

"No faith in science," House started, slipping into his familiar assessing drawl when dissecting people. "No faith in…God."

"I have faith in people," Mayes corrected. However, his tone implied that this faith was not a virtue. "I know that they're stupid, selfish creatures that can't be trusted. Not even those that pledge themselves to their Lord."

House and Mayes glared eye-to-eye until finally…

"Wow. You're tortured soul came through on that one. I bet it drives the young ladies crazy."

"You're a bastard."

"You're observant."

"…guys…" At Wilson's soft call House and Mayes turned to him then followed his gaze to Chase, who now had his eyes open and seemed conscious, if a little silent. "Chase?" Wilson called softly. He'd been shocked into stillness and moment ago when he turned away from his friend and the stranger's argument to find his patient looking at him with an unnervingly blank gaze.

"Robin." Mayes went to a knee to get closer. The blue-green eyes shifted to him.

"Hi," was Chase's short, soft and simple greeting. He saw Mayes smile in relief and saw Wilson's tension drain. His immediate concern for them passing as their ease returned, Chase turned his attention to the unfamiliar surroundings. The ceiling was white and a square-ish light fixture was up there. The walls were a light blue-grey and there was a black baby-grand piano in the far corner of the room. He wondered who played. His question was answered as he continued his perusal and noticed for the first time that House was seated on the arm rest of the couch above his head.

"Sleep well?"

On guard and unsure how to respond, Chase just blinked. After a stretch of silent seconds he ventured a response. "I wasn't sleeping." It was practically an open invitation to ask what he had been doing. Realizing this, and also realizing he didn't want to get into it with House, who was too curious and too sceptical as it was. Chase addressed Mayes. "They're around, you know."

"I know," Mayes agreed reluctantly.

"We have to go."

Mayes nodded solemnly.

"You can't go anywhere in your condition. Dr. Chase, you know that," House said condescendingly down to him. House didn't want Chase going anywhere that he couldn't find him, and that seemed to be exactly what Mayes was planning. Recalling the packed boxes from the small apartment and his sudden announcement that he quit House assumed that Chase had been planning a trip away too.

"Rest here for a bit. I'll get my things and then we'll go –together." Mayes brushed Chase's cheek with the back of his fingers. "Okay?"

Waiting seemed an impossible task to Chase just then. He wanted to go, just disappear until this blew over. And he wanted to go now. Warren must have read his impatience.

"I have to get some things," he placated. His rental car was still parked nearby Chase's place and there were items he needed. He'd left in his rental the paper with a list of trusted contacts there, in case he had been caught during the hospital breakout and the list was lost. They had few allies in this and Mayes had a feeling they would need every one.

Exhaling shakily, Chase gave a weak nod. Mayes returned one of his own and only when Chase looked away did he find the strength to move from his dear friend and lover's side.

Taking House by the arm, Mayes forced the crippled man to show him to the door. Wilson, horrified by the unfamiliar man's rough treatment, realized that, like House, he expected people to go out of their way to help the crippled man even if he was a jerk. Mayes didn't suffer fools, or arrogant physicians.

"Don't let him go outside. Don't let strangers in. Don't take him back to the hospital. I don't think Dr. Henderson would be very understanding at the moment. And if I find Robert back there, I'll kill you. We clear?"

Pained and bothered House didn't even argue. "Crystal. Get out." That didn't mean that he'd follow the orders just that he was sick of this man's presence and wanted him gone as soon as possible.

Mayes took one last measuring look at the older man before leaving. He didn't trust House, couldn't imagine himself ever trusting or even liking him. Grudgingly, though, he trusted the man's instinct. The desperate state left him with no recourse, so he might simply have been looking for something to ease his mind about the diagnostician's character. And if something did go terribly wrong, he wouldn't feel bad about taking it out on House.

---H/C---

Babysitting, that's what he'd been reduced to doing, just with a bigger baby. Instead of changing diapers he was changing bloody bandages. A baby would have been fussier and probably more entertaining (at least for a short while). The silence, while helpful for House's reading, was uncomfortable. Seated at the small table which doubled as his dining and poker table, House skimmed through the books on Stigmata and related subjects he'd retrieved from the library.

Wilson had left a half hour ago, about twenty minutes after Mayes. His patient, one of the ones knocking on death's door, needed him back at the hospital. He'd taken a break from the relatives and nurses to tend to House but he knew he couldn't stay. Unenthusiastically he'd gone, promising House that he wouldn't call a rabbi to come over. Since his departure there had only been quiet and torment.

Like the previous mysterious injuries, those in Chase's feet intensified in pain and then eased. There was no apparent pattern to it and the wounds didn't heighten in pain together. When they did happen to coincide he barely kept from screaming. It hurt so much. However, this was purely physical pain. He wasn't sure if the mental torment of his recent dreams or visions was worse. He didn't know which one he would choose and that thought continued to turn over is his mind. That there was a choice to be made somewhere; he just wasn't sure what the options were, though he was peripherally aware that he'd been making this choice all his life and proving it every seven years. Never like this though.

His feet began to pulse with pain and it caught him off guard. A muffled cry forced its way out before Chase could hold it all back. He turned his face to the back of the couch hoping to muffle it further.

The searing ended and Chase felt in control enough to relax a little. The marks on his back made that difficult but the constant pressure on his weight on them smeared the episodes of agony and streaks of minor relief into one throbbing, and more easily ignored ache.

"Chase, what is all this?" House was standing over him, having been brought over by the sound of distress. It was just one of many that House had been forced to endure over the past hour. Hearing someone in pain had never bothered him as much as it did now.

Gingerly lowering himself to sit on the coffee table House met the tired gaze. He was tired too. He was tired of repeatedly hitting his head against the wall that was this mystery and not having even a chip of brick to show for it.

"That thing that was on you're back," House continued when Chase didn't respond. He opened the book he'd brought with him to a marked page and showed Chase the image printed there. "It's a sigil of baphomet. I'm sure you already knew that, and that it's a symbol commonly used by satanic organizations. I'm sure you also knew that stigmata, according to the 'experts', can also be faked by demonic forces." It was clear in Chase's eyes that he wasn't perturbed. "So…are you possessed? Do we really need to call a priest and do an exorcism?" He wasn't sure how far he wouldn't go if it gave Chase some relief.

House was far too familiar with unbearable, unmanageable pain not to feel for Chase. Stuck with him in the same apartment, trying to wrap his mind around what he'd seen, what he'd heard and what he believed left him raw and more open than Chase had ever seen him.

"Had one…" Chase croaked, regarding the suggestion of an exorcism. "..didn't help." He'd actually had several, or at least several versions of the same idea, all with the same outcome of nothing. "I don't know why…why this…just want it to stop."

"Yeah…" me too, Greg thought but refrained from saying. He watched Chase close his eyes, probably trying to fall asleep or reach that special place were the pain couldn't touch him. House didn't actually expect him to find it. Since the first appearance of the wounds, those on his wrists, Chase had been almost completely lucid, save for a few strange sleeping episodes. Whatever majesty had been bestowed upon him for a brief stretch of minutes when Cameron and nurses had been trying to help him had fled. Everything since seemed like a punishment. Still, House left him to his search anyway.

His small, long, and sometimes too piously written windows into a world he'd never really believed in regained his attention. The answer probably wasn't in those books but he needed all the information he could get. He remained seated on the coffee table, perhaps just hoping his proximity would help in some undefined way with Chase's discomfort.

Several minutes passed until, without warning, the young man sat up on the couch. House moved his eyes up from the book to eye his fellow.

"Chase?"

Chase didn't respond. He began unwrapping the gauze around his left wrist. House's bland protest went unheeded. Finally the bandages came off. House sat up straight and abandoned the book to examine Chase's wrist. It was completely healed. House ran his thumb over the spot where the wound had been and though there was still some tenderness and a faint mark, only the blood smears remained as proof that the skin had ever been broken.

Unwrapping the rest of the dressings found the other wounds in similar states of repair.

House was dumbfounded. Chase too, though he was willing to take the break from the seeping injuries and the excruciating pain.

"Well…it's convenient, I guess," Chase couldn't help but comment. His voice was still weak and wavered a little. The searing had faded to a dull ache, the type he was more familiar with from previous episodes.

"How is this convenient?" House inquired, still at a loss.

A pale smile turned the lips, not enough to light the troubled eyes, only to show House that Chase was attempting to slip back into his usual persona. "Where's your washroom?"

"At the end," house replied nodding to the corridor. Chase followed the instruction. His walk was slow. House could tell from his gait that his feet still pained him, though not enough to stop nature from taking it's course. House abandoned his book and waited for Chase to return. It was interrogation time.

The sound of the toilet flushing reached his ears a minute before Chase was in his sight again. His purple scrubs were rumpled, stained with blood in a few places, but the younger man didn't look all that much worse for wear.

Unaware of House's appraisal Chase continued forward, not towards House of the couch where he'd spent most of his time in House's apartment. He was following another spectre. It was faint, and like many of the others, he couldn't tell from which side it came. He'd noticed it when he was washing his hands and wrists, removing as much blood as he could. From the corner of his eye he'd seen it in the doorway, just looking at him. When it began away, Chase had followed it out of curiosity.

Now it was in the living room and still moving. Chase followed in its steps until he could go no further. There was a wall in front of him. The spectre had walked right through it. He went to the window to follow the unknown being's movements. It faded out of sight after stepping off the sidewalk. Chase remained at the window, not shocked, confused or even stunned.

"What is it?" He heard and saw House's reflection in the glass ask a moment before he felt some of his warmth at his side. "What do you see?"

Chase looked towards House and leaned in close to whisper to him. "I see dead people." He couldn't keep a straight face and half a second later he couldn't hold back the giggle that bubbled up. House, meanwhile, was not amused. Chase was in the middle of one of the biggest religious mysteries on earth, House with him since he was stubborn like that, and he was making jokes?

"That's not funny."

Chase disagreed. "It's lame and it's funny." Both wondered if he was headed for a psychotic break. The mirth was under Chase's control again as he carefully trod back to the couch, and found a place where there was no blood to sit. House sat down next to him after checking that the small smear of blood that Wilson missed on his clean up was dry.

"So nineteen-ninety-three, you're fourteen. You decide to get a tattoo –rebellion of some feeble sort?" House prompted looking straight ahead at their reflection on the black screen on his television.

Chase shook his head and admitted with difficulty that "It…it wasn't my choice."

"Peer pressure doesn't mean you don't have a choice, it just means you're more likely to make the stupid one," House chastised, putting together Chase's words and his own ideas to come to the simplest of conclusions.

"Peer pressure?" Chase barked. "Is that what you'd call it when they strap you down and draw marks on your back even while you're yelling and begging them to stop?"

"No, I'd call that assault."

"…answer for everything, huh?"

On some days, House liked to imagine so. Every day reminded him he didn't know much, little matter how many articles he read and mysteries he solved. "Who did it, and why?"

Eyes flitting over objects and decorations of his surroundings, Chase didn't respond at first. He shrugged. "Mistaken identity." He didn't have to look at House or the reflection in the TV to know House didn't like that answer. "It's the only answer that makes sense."

It didn't make sense to House. "Were they trying to…curse you? Or…"

Chase shook his head. "They…they were trying to bind me." To hell, to the devil, Chase didn't say but House heard anyway. "The mark faded. I thought it was over."

"But it wasn't. So, who were they? Same people your friend is worried about?"

"Possibly. Probably" Chase corrected. Shaking his head to told House: "They think I'm someone who can change things." He didn't want to get into what those things were. "Everything I know tells me I'm not."

"Then either they're wrong, or you're missing information." Confused and disturbed eyes turned to House but Chase didn't say anything. "What?"

"…information…" That was familiar; not the word itself –he was well versed in the English language. It was the notion that he perhaps didn't know everything regarding not only the situation, but himself as well, that struck a chord in him.

"What? What is it?"

Chase was going to tell House about his dream, if only so that he could get a second opinion on it, though House believed as much in the prophetic powers of dreams as he did in a supreme being. He didn't get the chance. As he opened his mouth his intended speech was lost and replaced by dread.

"They're here."

**End Chapter 6**


	8. Theological Facets

**Chapter 7 – Theological Facets**

---H/C---

"Who?" House thought perhaps he meant the people about whom Mayes had been so paranoid. He naturally assumed they were clerical personnel of some sort. Shaking his head Chase stood wobbly from the couch.

"Worse," he responded as though knowing what House was thinking. There wasn't even enough time for House to contemplate that mini mystery before his apartment exploded into chaos. The door flew open and crashed into the wall with a bang. Chase backed away from it. The window behind him erupted into small shards of glass.

With neither man at their physical peak in that moment in time, there was no way to prevent the sudden invasion. In a matter of a few, diminutive seconds the small living room was crowded with numerous people, many of them armed, and the few exits were effectively block.

Staring down the barrel of a loaded gun House still couldn't keep his mouth shut. "I'm pretty sure I didn't invite you in."

"You'll just have to excuse us. You see, you have something of importance to us," the man who for the moment appeared to be in charge said as he easily wove his way through his people to stand by Chase. In his navy blue suit and grey turtle neck the man looked like a plain, early-forties American man. He certainly didn't look deserving of fearful expression Chase was giving him. House, however, wasn't aware of their history.

"It's nice to see you again, Robert."

"I can't say the same, Clayton." The waver didn't make it into his voice but the other man seemed to know how much effort the small success took. Their history was one of violence. And time had only made Clayton more ruthless.

"It's time to go."

Shaking his head Chase replied. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Is he the one?" House asked. Chase had nearly forgotten that there were other people in the room besides him and his old foe. House rose from the couch and asked again, "Is he the one?"

The man in the suit, Clayton, looked down his nose at the older, crippled man. "The one that what?"

"The one that held him down and carved a baphomet into his back." His statement was punctuated with a blow with the hilt of his cane into the stranger's gut. The next seconds were a rush of movement. The Clayton doubled over, one of his goons moving closer and looking ready to shoot House and Chase stepping into the line of fire.

"Chase," House said tensely as the other man practically fell into him in his haste to stupidly be a hero. House had one hand on his fellow's upper arm trying to get him out of harms way but Chase didn't budge.

"Wait! Hold your fire!" Clayton, having just been assaulted, struggled to speak before irrevocable harm was done. "Don't shoot. We need him alive."

Staring down the gunman Chase felt himself begin to breathe again once the firearm was no longer aimed at them.

"You're an idiot," he said to House over his shoulder and was barely able to catch the diagnostician's expression as it soured further.

"So what exactly is Dr. House to you Robert?"

"He's nobody," Chase responded quickly.

The man smiled a patronizing smile. "No. I think he's our insurance." Having quickly recovered from the blow he'd taken, Clayton stepped close to House and Chase, and gripped the latter by the back of his neck. "You misbehave and I'll break his other leg." Turning to House he warned. "You hit me again, and you won't live to regret it."

Now usually House would have called his bluff. Clearly Chase knew that because the acute fear in his eyes could only come about if he knew that House would do something inadvisable and that this Clayton would follow through on his threat.

So, House behaved.

"Let's get out of here. Call Antolovich. Tell him we've got what we need, and we got it my way."

Chase knew that name and his confusion was prominent enough that Clayton commented on it.

"Yes, we've decided that working together would be mutually beneficial." A step behind the small procession House listened carefully while Chase looked to be not listening at all. "One of us will be right about you."

---H/C---

Piotr Antolovich, a stocky, ambitious man, had just handed off his phone when it rang again. He took it back and greeted the caller sharply, assuming it was his "partner" again.

"What now?"

"I have him. He's ready. Where do you want me to bring him?"

"Mister Mayes. I wondered when we were going to hear from you. Seems you're too late. You left him unguarded and my associates have acquired him already."

"Then you let Edie go. And I guess my part in this is done," Mayes's dispassionate voice informed.

"Oh, no, no, no. The deal was that you bring him all the way. You leave now and we'll take everything you have."

"You already have him. What good can I do you now?"

"Insurance. Robert trusts you –unfortunate boy."

Mayes was given the meeting arrangements and the phone call was concluded. He sat back in the car he'd rented, parked a few hundred or so feet down the street from House's apartment. He'd arrived back just in time to see both Chase and House being led out and into waiting cars. Warren had been too late so he'd made a call he'd promised never to make again, only keep himself close.

---H/C---

"I guess that whole vow of poverty thing doesn't apply to you guys," House said from his very plush seat in the private jet. Those whom he'd addressed ignored him. Sitting at a pair of facing couches, a table between them, they were quietly discussing something.

At House's right, closer to the back of the plane where the lavatories were located, Chase lay on the sofa that lined a small section of the cabin wall. He was unresponsive most of the time. House had checked him earlier and the younger man seemed fine, simply tired from the blood loss and the stress. No matter how mystical or divine these people might have thought stigmata was, it was still happening to a flesh and bone person and thus, took a physical toll. After arriving at the airport where the private jet had been waiting it became apparent quite quickly that Chase could no longer walk without help and a great deal more effort than he had in him to give at the moment. Conveniently, Antolovich and his people had prepared for such a contingency and there was a wheelchair in the trunk that Chase had no choice but to use.

Getting through customs and filing a flight plan had been a fairly quick process, though House had to wonder how they'd okayed it for him and Chase to make and international flight with no papers.

Once that was out of the way they'd embarked the plane and took off. There was no way Chase could mount the stairs so Mayes had quickly volunteered and carried Chase into the plane. House still wasn't sure what this guy's angle was, nor any of these people. Mayes hadn't left Chase's side since take-off and the others had not said more than a few words.

"You're probably wondering why a Satanic Occult and the Church are working together," the woman in the nun's clothing said. She was seated in a single in a seat like House's. A neat trick about the chairs was that they swivelled all the way around. She spun to face him then released the mechanism to lock the chair in place, and in his mind House heard "Mister Bond" at the end of her evil intro.

"I assume that someone will get double crossed at some point," House said and didn't like the smile that she responded with. He also didn't like the way the clergymen and Clayton's people, The Infernal Circle, were getting along and planning things out together.

"Not true," the nun corrected. "One side will be right. The other will beg for mercy."

"Not that the riddle isn't interesting, but right about what?"

"Right about which side Robert comes from." The nun gave House a critical eye and House realized that she was a lot like him, which sort of explained why he couldn't stand her. "Don't tell me a smart man like you hasn't noticed the strange occurrences as of late, and the strange conundrums Robert practically embodies."

"What of them?"

"What of them, indeed." She gave a condescending smile and shifted her gaze to Warren and Chase. Warren sat at on the edge of the couch where Chase lay, talking quietly to him, providing comfort through his familiar and welcome touch. Though his wounds no longer bled, the familiar pain in the five regions was bad on its own. "Nails through the wrists, nails through the feet, lashed on the back, a crown of thorns and a spear in the side."

"Wounds of the crucifixion."

"Only gifted to very special people. But Robert has more than that, and those gifts aren't given to people at all." The woman was amused by House's expression. "You think we're crazy."

"You said it not me."

"Maybe we need the opinion of the man who knows Robert best. Warren, what do you think he is?"

The man addressed didn't respond.

"I guess he's too busy working off his guilt."

Now House was thoroughly confused. The church and occult in cahoots and a bitchy nun? Weren't nuns supposed to be round and wise, with bellies that jiggled like bowls full of jelly when they laughed?

Still she was observant (probably manipulative too). House also had noticed that the single-minded attention Mayes paid Chase stemmed from something other than concern.

"Suffice it to say that Robert is very special."

"Sister," a man in clerical clothes with small square in his white collar interrupted. "They need your input."

She nodded and with a final calculated smile at House and the other two men she left. Her seat was filled by the man, Antolovich.

"I'm sorry you're being involved in this," the man apologized like any good person wouldn't have had to.

"Not sorry enough to let me go though."

"You wouldn't leave anyway. You're like him," Antolovich nodded to Warren. "Curious, resilient, but in the end, only loyal to yourself. I can't understand why Robert is drawn to that type."

On the couch Warren tensed at the label stuck on him. A weak squeeze on his hand calmed him.

"I guess he's just a poor judge of character," House responded.

"I would think so but I think he might be seeing more than the rest of us. You've heard of angels and demons, have you not? Even if you don't believe in either, which is silly."

"You're right –I don't believe in either. And Chase isn't good enough to be what you would think is an angel, or bad enough to be considered a demon."

"What about bad enough to be a fallen angel? Or good enough to be a redeemed demon? That would fit."

House began to twirl his cane with one hand. He glanced at Chase whose features were still pinched with pain. "Let me guess. The holy people are betting on fallen angel, the Satan worshippers, on redeemed demon. And now ET has to phone home." It was ludicrous. No wonder Chase fled from life with these people. House had only been near them a few hours and he was sick of their antics.

"You don't have to believe me, Dr. House. All you have to do is fulfil the obligations set by the oath you took. Keep Robert alive and healthy."

"That's going to be hard without proper equipment," House quipped, though he knew the proper equipment had been helping Chase when he was in the hospital either.

"Don't worry, you don't have to do it for long."

Here Mayes finally interjected, not wanting what might be their only other ally to get the wrong idea. "Yes, not for long. Just until they kill him."

House turned his sharp gaze back to Antolovich who didn't appear contrite over his small bit of duplicity. "I am sorry but it has to be done. There's a great conflict on the horizon. He is our only chance to stave it off." The balding man leading the clerical contingent of the party stood and headed back to the front of the plane.

"Where are we going?" House asked quietly of Mayes.

"The Holy Land."

---H/C---

"I don't know where he is, but he wouldn't do that," Wilson defended.

Cuddy was used to Wilson defending House even when they both knew House had done something wrong. Of course there were also the times when Cuddy defended and Wilson prosecuted. House was always in the middle but he'd never endangered someone unnecessarily like this before. "He wouldn't break the hospital rules to prove a point?"

"The only way to prove his point would be to do it in a hospital!" Wilson reasoned.

"I'm sending them out anyway. We have no where else to look and a man whose loosing pint after pint of blood is going to need more help than a doctor with no equipment can give." They'd searched House's place, where Wilson had finally admitted to having seen both House and Chase last, but nothing other than House's stuff, a broken window and a slightly broken door had been found. Chase's apartment was similarly empty but, strangely, full of packed boxes. With all of House's many haunts and the few of Chase's they knew about crossed off the list they were looking at local churches, against Wilson's opinion.

It was Cameron and Foreman doing the searching, since they were now without their patient. When the incident with the smoke bomb in House's office had been diffused and Chase's disappearance was noticed, Wilson had managed to smooth things over by explaining that House had Chase. He wished he hadn't because now, five hours later, both House and Chase were missing. Giving the oncologist accusatory glares Cameron and Foreman had gone on their respective searches.

When those had concluded without having produced results Cuddy became desperate. The next step was send Cameron and Foreman to search local churches, missions, mosques, temples, any religious building she could think of. Wilson didn't feel right just sitting around.

"I'll help." Though he didn't believe they'd find him.

"No. I'm going to phone other hospitals and clinics to be on the look out for anybody matching House or Chase's description. You are going to go to your office and do your job. One of us should." She only needed a short glare to ensure that Wilson would stay.

He was disappointed, and also grateful. The search was just busy work, like House running a battery of blood tests when he knew the answer wasn't there but needed to rule out the obvious anyway. So it was Wilson, not House, left to sit back and twiddle his thumbs as his mind went to work on a puzzle.

Only a few minutes into his ponderings his office phone interrupted him.

"What," he asked tiredly.

"Hi." Wilson recognized the voice. "I'm looking for Doctor Wilson, God's gift to needy cancer patients."

"House! Where the hell are you? Is Chase okay?"

"If by okay you mean laid over in Schiphol because of bad weather, while a bunch of misguided clergy hold us against our will, with Chase nearly unconscious with agony, then yes, we're fine. And why did you only ask about Chase?"

"I naturally assumed that whatever had happened was all your fault. And that your shamefully strong sense of self-preservation would keep you safe," Wilson dismissed dispassionately. "Why are you in Amsterdam? Who kidnapped you?"

"Some priests or something. Chase has a history with them."

"So why are you with them?"

"Well, you wouldn't want me to just leave him alone with these people. You know the rep these churchy types have."

"In other words they didn't give you a choice."

"Not one."

"Find a way to stall them. I'll try to get you some help."

"How? You have connections in Interpol?"

In the face of House's ritual abuse of him Wilson almost hated himself of worrying so much about him.

The silence over the line said something, or House knew Wilson well enough to know what he was thinking because his voice lost its edge. "I've tried to get help but they always have somebody watching. I just paid some kid my last fifty bucks to use his phone in the bathroom."

"There has to be something we can do."

"Keep Cuddy and the other two out of my stuff. If I think of anything else, I'll let you know."

"House…"

"I've gotta go."

"House, wait!"

It was too late. The line went dead. Wilson stared for many seconds at the receiver in his hand. He was going to put the phone back on its hook but decided instead to leave it on his desk to keep his line occupied. He needed a moment to think the situation through and he didn't want to be disturbed.

"Dr. Wilson?"

He should have locked the door to his office too.

The tentative call was proceeded by the entrance of Dr. Henderson, a man Wilson had nothing against except his beef with House. But if Wilson hated everyone who hated House, he'd be worse off than House.

"Yes, what is it?" As far as James knew he didn't have any cancer patients that were crazy too.

"Have you found Doctor Chase?"

"No. Why?" The lie came so quickly it was natural.

Henderson rubbed his upper lip and took a quick glance to his right. "I have a patient," he admitted as though that were unusual for a doctor. "She needs to see Doctor Chase."

Wilson shook his head. "Well, she can't."

"It would probably help…" Henderson sighed and began again. "She thinks she's an angel. She thinks Chase is too. She also thinks she knows where he is."

"Tell her she's crazy. That is what you do isn't it?" Wilson almost said, perhaps feeling the need to make up for the lack of poor interpersonal skills House and Chase's absence had left. Instead he posed:

"Can I talk to her?"

Henderson didn't have a problem with that, and a few minutes later he was in the room of Angelica Brown, a woman in her late twenties who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

"Angelica," James called softly, trying not to startle the patient. She was strapped to the bed and mumbling to herself, or perhaps to someone only she could see. Wilson glanced to Henderson. He gave a sad shake of his head with his lips pressed thinly together. Angelica was always like this, medicated or not.

"I can see you," her raspy voice told the air at her bed's left. "Because…'cause I see," she giggled softly in her peculiar mirth.

"Angelica."

All her amusement drained away as quickly as it had come. She jerked her head to look at her latest visitor. "You can't know my name. I'm looking for Robert."

"He's…not around right now." Her wide, suspicion-filled eyes, and her constant rocking side to side made Wilson uncomfortable. As though she was seeing more of him than he wanted to he had to fight against the urge to cross his arms or dig his hands into his pockets so that he could work his nerves out on whatever loose thread or piece of lint might be found there.

"Do you know where he is?" Wilson asked carefully.

"He flies, like he's meant to…he just forgot." Angelica stopped rocking and her eyes lost their disconcerting intensity. "They have the way home if he stops fighting."

"Angelica, Where is Robert?"

"Half a circle…the Dutch son in the old father land on his way home." Angelica turned her gaze to the left side of her bed again. "My angel…my amazing and terrible wonder." Her ghostly whisper pushed the two doctors out of her room.

"She doesn't make much sense most of the time," Henderson apologized for her.

"It's okay." James began to leave. "I'll pass your message along to Chase," he assured quickly before Henderson could remind him. He headed for the stairs and at a landing between floors he stopped to wonder and worry over the situation.

Henderson didn't know it but Angelica might make sense if one knew what to listen for. Maybe it was just a fluke, a coincidence that he was reading too much into. Whatever the explanation Wilson was going to pay more attention to the woman. Her fractured mind might produce some useful insight in the near future.

---H/C---

It was a long flight to Israel. A two hour layover in Amsterdam was then followed by another long leg, but thankfully the final leg of their flight.

They arrived by taxi to a private mansion in Jerusalem, owned by friends of the small and secret branch of the Catholic Church charged with this issue –The Tenth Order. These people, named as the next hierarchy of heavenly servants under their God, were a group believed by the followers to have been founded by the Watchers, angels on earth sent to look after man but who may have played a large part in corrupting them. Today that group was said to continue to work in the favour of man and on God's behalf.

"Father Antolovich, Deacon Voorhees, it's good to see you both again," their hostess greeted once she help had settled them in the ornate lounge.

"Miss Stodelmeyer," Voorhees greeted her in return. The deacon was the leader of this little faction, all orders supposedly going through him. The grey-haired man seemed meagre and insipid next to the strong frame of Clayton and the Antolovich's aura of certainty and wisdom. "Thank you for your hospitality."

Chase cringed at the stuffiness of the exchange. His eyes were closed since it made him feel a little better to ignore the stares and the surroundings, but he could still hear. And he could feel the woman's response. Chase wasn't sure how screwed up a person had to be to actually enjoy the adherence to old-fashioned, formal exchanges but this woman did. She also ignored anybody that was unimportant to her. She didn't so much as nod to those that assisted the ordained men, and her gaze was quick to skip over Clayton and his people. Clearly they were unwanted guests.

"Is this him?" Chase heard her ask and felt her eyes on him. Next to him Mayes tensed and seated not far he felt House's displeasure mount. Despite the open, airy lounge, and the relaxed countenance of those in the room, the front barely concealed the undercurrent of dread, anticipation and malice. In a blink all that peripheral awareness vanished and focused on the basic human senses the moment Chase felt a touch on his face. He startled. His eyes opened and found the dark eyes of the unfamiliar woman meeting his. "You are a beautiful creation," she whispered, the lines around her eyes and mouth becoming more pronounced as the content expression graced her face. "So precious."

"He needs to rest," Mayes said suddenly, his tone magnitudes harsher.

Undisturbed and not insulted by his tone, the Israeli woman looked up at him. "Warren Mayes –Watchman servant of Matthew."

"I know the meaning of my name," he told her frostily. "And I know my purpose. He needs rest."

"Of course," she relented after a tense staring match with the tall man. "You have a big day tomorrow," she said to Chase who still looked dazed and not entirely coherent.

Both Mayes and House felt themselves relax a fraction when the woman removed her touch from Chase. They felt even better once they were being led to the guest room where Chase would be sleeping in that night. The pace was slow since Chase had barely the energy to walk at all which was fine by House. The flight of stairs to the second floor had not been fun for him and the pace gave him a good chance to look around. The artwork lining the corridors looked old and expensive but not particularly good in his opinion. The carpet was old and musty and the air smelt a little stale. Though the exterior and the interior façade exuded grandeur, House could still see a few corners where wear and tear on the old structure hadn't been repaired, only cheaply and badly covered.

Mayes helped Chase settle into bed once they arrived at the room. Nothing was said until the young woman who had led them there closed the door and her retreating footsteps receded into the background hum of activity in the house.

House sat at the edge of the bed and checked Chase's pulse. The young man was on his side facing the door and the other two. His glassy eyes were open but unknown to them he wasn't seeing the moderately sized and sparsely furnished room. They attributed his detachment to pain but had yet to learn of the trips outside his existence Chase too often found himself on.

"So what is your purpose? Other than annoying the hell out of me," House inquired not looking up from his watch as he measure Chase's pulse rate.

Mayes sighed silently, more to steady himself than in exasperation. "He's my purpose." He saw House's gaze shifted to him but kept his on Chase. "His well-being, his happiness, I was supposed to take care of him."

"I'm sure you don't need me to tell you this, but you've been doing a pretty crappy job," House derided.

Mayes agreed sadly. "I know. I just…after twenty-one years I thought I was wrong."

"I keep noticing these multiples of seven coming up. Coincidence or design?"

"I don't know. Seven is considered a divine number. There's also the seven year-life cycles that some people believe in. And, in my experience, every seven years something major happens –sometimes something terrible."

"He just turned twenty eight. I'm going to guess that you're thirty five," House deduced and his deduction was confirmed with a nod.

"When I was seven. I wandered to a hospital in Melbourne. I met a priest there –it was like he'd known I was coming and was waiting for me. He showed me to a room where a tiny newborn was struggling to survive and right then I found my destiny, my purpose and I never questioned it."

"You do know he was born positive for cocaine and heroin. Not a great start for a divine messenger."

House was right, Mayes knew, but he couldn't even begin to describe the awesome feeling he'd experienced when, as a child, he saw Robert for the very first time. The big world suddenly hadn't mattered because it made sense because of that one little being. He'd felt his purpose like it had been born into him and finally awakened. "I know he's special. I don't know how but I can feel it," was as much as Warren could elaborate for House who'd been waiting for his answer.

House wanted to laugh in his face, ridicule everything Mayes believed to his soul was true. Yet somehow, House found he couldn't. Chase was different; House believed that the more he delved into his fellow's life, but House only associated with people who somehow deviated from the norm. Was Chase really more different than what he'd originally suspected –more than just a statistical outlier?

"So what happened when Chase was seven years old?" If he wanted to explain why Chase was different with a hypothesis that was based on something real, he'd need all the information.

Mayes perched himself on bedside table and watched House's hand on Chase's. He didn't question House's curiosity. They had few allies and at the moment information was the only weapon with which Mayes could arm the crippled man. "Visions I suppose you would call them. Insights into people and things that no child could ever know. Even when he spoke them aloud it sounded like he understood the deeper meaning but not the specific words of the message. They performed a ritual under the guise of his First Communion trying to determine what exactly was going on with him, but there was no final answer. Strike one for the Church of God."

"So the Church of Satan wanted its chance." House felt Chase shiver and looked down to notice for the first time that his hand held Chase's and his thumb was rubbing a soothing motion on the back of it. The motion stopped when House noticed and he was about to pull away until he felt Chase tense. "You're okay," House assured matter-of-factly, reluctantly, and felt a swell of something when Chase believed him and relaxed.

Stamping down his emotion, Mayes looked away and went on. "At fourteen they snatched him up from right under my nose. He stepped off the school bus and was coming towards me. I swear he knew it was coming before I did. His smile just," Mayes snapped the fingers, "vanished into fear and before he could begin to run someone grabbed him, forced him into a car and took off. It took ten days to find him." His gut still clenched and his eyes still watered at the memory. The thin boy, marked all over with symbols drawn with his own blood. Some were even carved into his flesh by sharp edges enough that blood welled at the cuts. Robert had been pale and unconscious and had remained so for two more days before waking into the pain of the crucifixion wounds, but without the physical manifestation of wounds on his body. And of course one could not forget the curse or whatever they called it, drawn into the smooth skin of his back. They wouldn't wash off. Fortunately, it and the other marks faded in the coming weeks, but their effect would remain in dim echoes on him forever.

"Then, when he turned twenty-one, I made the worst mistake of my life. I betrayed him, joining the ranks of his mother and father."

"They knew about what he might be?" House didn't like the wording but he had no others.

"His father ignored it, ignored both Robert and his mother. His mother…well she was the one who told Clayton and his followers when and where to find Robert that day when he was fourteen."

House was dumbstruck, though his expression remained blank and unapproachable. Could there ever truly be a mother that bad? House could imagine only Lady Macbeth being worse a maternal figure. "What did they give her?"

"Money, drugs, alcohol; the things that would lead to her death two and a half years later." Those and guilt.

"And what did they give you?" House asked and insulted all at once. His eyes were expectant, waiting for the worst, and like people always seem to do but never seem to realize until they were called on it; and the worst was most always what was delivered.

"They gave me a life to live, a home, a career," Mayes said in shame for trading so much for so little. "Father Antolovich promised to give me everything I thought I wanted if I just kept Robert at the safe-house until they arrived." Mayes stared up at the cracked, discoloured ceiling. He tried to keep the wetness over his eyes from falling into tears of regret.

How badly his Robin had needed him in those days. It had been misery for him. The spectres that he couldn't tell were good or bad, the sights, too many of them horrors that no person on earth should be burdened with having to experience, and the pain and angry red marks that reddened the flesh all over the boy's body. Mayes had held him while he screamed, comforted him while he cried, and when Robert told him he loved him and gave his body to him once more, Warren's thoughts had been full of spite and treachery.

"So what happened?" The words delivered in an American accent broke through the recriminations of Warren's mind.

"He must have overheard, or seen something. When I was out of the room for a few minutes he slipped out the back and…disappeared. He suffered through the rest of the cycle alone and when he did resurface it was too late for any design that might entail him. They'd have to wait another seven years. Robert finished med school, then left the country. I had no contact with him since then until a few days ago."

"Well…I guess that explains a few things about him," House said after the silence grew too long. It explained to him why Chase was the opportunist that he was. When those he'd trusted to take care of him let him down, time and time again, he learnt to take care of himself. And yet in Chase's pragmatism and pessimism, there was always that small, innocent piece of the boy who'd grown up under a heavy hand of spiritualism, always looking for something to prove him wrong, something to redeem them all. It was why he gave out second chances when a more cautious person wouldn't. And human nature was the reason they hadn't yet paid off.

After five or so more minutes of silence House let go of Chase and immediately had to calm him when the blond-haired man began to panic. His wide-open, unseeing eyes searched his sight for something to anchor him. The hand, where House's warmth was being stolen by the cold winter breeze of south Chile, reached out blindly.

"Chase, you're okay," House said reaching to take the hand in his again and letting his other brush through the soft, bright hair. "I just need to go get something. I'll be right back," he assured, needing Chase to believe that he wasn't being abandoned by him too. Knowing his history it was suddenly very important to House that Chase understand him. He spoke simply. "I'm not leaving you. I promise, Robert, I'll be right back."

Not sure how it was that House was with him when he was clearly alone with the two women who were beating up on a boy who was barely reaching the cusp of manhood, Chase knew only that he didn't want to be more alone than he was, so he tried to go back to where he thought House was. He ended up at a sight of more sadness and pain.

Mayes switched with House, taking over comforting the disturbed man while House went to get some water for both him and Chase. The en-suite washroom had no cups so House exited the room to find what he needed. The search only took about two minutes as one of the servants noticed House and after managing to summit the language barrier, brought the required items. The glass stacked in the pitcher to leave his other hand free and House began back to the room. He paused when he heard what sounded like Clayton and Antolovich speaking and unrepentantly listened in.

"…do it this way? All these compromises…" The more gravely voice of Mr. Clayton complained.

"It's the way he wants it done. There's too much lore and too much influence here for us to simply ignore them. It's of no consequence. It all comes to an end the same way."

"…you do realize that if we're wrong, we'll have killed an innocent man."

House pressed his ear closer, trying to hear the low words.

"…posterity will concern itself with one man?...war, one man will mean less than nothing."

"And if we're successful?"

"Then his sacrifice will not be in vain."

Shoes began to scuff on the carpet behind the mostly closed door. House knew he had to make his escape. He didn't look back when he heard the door open just a second before he walked into Chase's temporary room. He didn't now if the two men saw him but in order not to look suspicious he continued about his business and closed the door behind him.

Mayes glanced a House when he re-entered and quietly finished talking to Chase. He stood, giving Chase one last touch. "I have some things to do. Watch out for him. Hopeful you can do a better job this time than last."

Mayes exited abruptly with House's glare at his back. House fished out his Vicodin bottle and took a pill. He couldn't help but wonder if there was a place to get his pain killer and general vice around here.

He looked down at Chase and wondered what was going on back in New Jersey. Maybe he should call and convince Wilson to take a trip to the land of his faith. He really wished Wilson was around because he trusted James despite recent events. He didn't trust Chase in his current state of stress. And Mayes, House didn't trust at all. He claimed remorse over his past actions but the more House thought about it, the more he concluded that Mayes wasn't being entirely honest with them.

---H/C---

**End Chapter 7**


	9. The Head of a Pin

**Sinnerman**, **Prophet, Saint**

_by Sagga Bott_

Chase, House, others

Summary: The marks of the saints and a past he won't remember force Chase and House to face religion head on. They won't get his fellow without a fight!

Pairings: Chase/OMC, House/Chase

Chapter Rating: PG-13

Warning(s): Language, Adult Situations, Violence, M/M relationships. Do not read this story if any of these bother you!

Genre: Drama, Action/Adventure, Supernatural (far out of the House MD realm later)

Spoilers: Up to season 4 Finale.

A/N: This took way too long. Sorry for the delay. I've been carrying around this chapter with me so that I could edit it at every chance but it seemed to take ages. Anyway, I hope it's worth the wait.

**Chapter 8 - The Head of a Pin**

---H/C---

It was the change in times zones that had House wide awake long after the sun had set. It had been at least a few hours since Mayes had left. House hadn't left the room. Chase had slept on and off, though none of it appeared restful. House had observed and brooded. His inability to find a logical, scientific explanation for what was happening to his fellow made him weary, while the constant threat of their captors made him jumpy. The plausible scenario, that should he find an explanation for this apparent mystery nobody would believe him, made him tired. The only place left to sit in the room was the bed. There had been a chair but he'd used it to barricade the door closed by leaning the chair on its hind legs until the back fit underneath the door knob –just like in the movies. He'd quickly grown annoyed with the intermittent stream of staff looking to clean up and take care of things when there was nothing to clean up or take care of. His successful interference in their overzealous performance of their duties had been his greatest accomplishment in the past hours.

Feeling as old and tired as he probably would have been feeling for years if not for the numbing effect of his pain medication, House sat at the other side of the king-sized bed, his back to his charge. The city's night light was a glowing blanket laid underneath a dimly starred sky. He thought he heard some commotion in the distance but couldn't tell for certain. Finally he kicked off his shoes, removed his jacket and lay down. His eyes remained upon the ceiling for a few more minutes then his head shifted to the man next to him, taking his gaze with it.

He found his subordinates gaze already on him. His wounds had once again closed but pain lingered on his face. It took House a moment to think of something to say, unsure as he was of Chase's state of mind.

"Don't get any ideas, just 'cause where in the same bed."

"Wouldn't dream of it." The response was slow in coming as if it took some effort to generate the levity that could be heard in his words. "As far as I know all you're hookers have been women."

He wasn't wrong in his assumption, but House wasn't about to let him know that. "As far as you know," was the cryptic response. His smirk deepened when he heard the sound of Chase shifting to see him better. House has always been quite candid regarding his sex-life, practically shouting his exploits from the roof. His possible experiences with other men had, oddly, never come up. Chase was curious. And House's sex-life was a nice distraction from their current situation.

"So…" Chase ventured, "You and…Wilson? ever…y'know."

"No, we've never fucked like bunnies." House's smirk turned into a smile at the suspected though not visually confirmed twist of Chase's mouth at his crass wording. "I heard you and Mayes were at a safe-house together when you were twenty-one."

Innuendo was, abruptly, House's game of choice and Chase either didn't have enough experience to know how to face it or he just took the route that was simplest. "We were. And we did fuck like bunnies."

"I assume that's before he sold you out to your mortal enemies." The light conversation took a sudden turn on to a rougher, more difficult path.

"He didn't sell me out…" Chase was matter-of-fact in his rebuttal, though there was an opening in his tone that House all too often stepped into in order to refute.

"Of course not. He didn't mean it. He just accidentally called them, told them where to find you--"

"He didn't!"

"You can't recognize betrayal. I suppose that explains why you know nothing about loyalty."

"And you know nothing about earning it. What's your excuse?"

House shifted his gaze to the tall window he'd spent much of the last few hours staring through. He wished he'd continued staring and left the past where it belonged, where he couldn't poke and prod it. The point he'd been trying to make before he thought he'd slide a dig at Chase's character into the mix was…

"Mayes is up to something."

"He's trying to find a way out of this situation."

"Which begs the question how did he get into the situation?" His confidence emboldened him to face his fellow again. The reminder of Chase's frail condition was written in his shaky breaths and the darkness that circled the stunning eyes. At the last moment Greg tried to soften his accusation. "If he was on your side, then how did they find us?"

"If I knew that, it'd be a lot easier to avoid them." Chase didn't go for the bait House was laying before him.

House took his avoidance as disbelief and support of Mayes despite the careful deduction laid out. "If they found you on their own, then why would they include him if he wasn't going to help them?" House didn't get a response but he watched the doubt inch its way across Chase's tense and worn expression and felt remorse for what he had to do. Chase knew Mayes the best but that knowledge was useless if he was blinded by friendship…or love.

"He wouldn't," Chase said, more to himself than the man next to him. His tone was even, his eyes were steady, Chase's characteristic fidgetiness gone.

House suddenly felt too tired to move or continue his argument. "It's late. Get some sleep."

He didn't have to wait long before he thought Chase was asleep. His breathing became a little shallower, a little less pained and some apprehension that had coiled in his body released and allowed his limbs to relax. House remained on the bed. The cot he was supposed to be using was probably waiting outside the door but he was too lazy to go all the way out there and get it. And he didn't want to be any further away from Chase than he had to be.

---H/C---

He heard the door to his office open after a sharp knock. He planned to look up just as soon as re read the next note, and the next one, and the prescription dosage.

"You're concern for your best friend is touching."

Wilson ignored Cameron's voice. He didn't even have to look to know she was tired and worried.

Foreman slipped past the woman and collapsed to the oncologist's couch. This had become their base of operations in the hunt for House and Chase. The diagnostic department was now an abandoned monument to brilliance.

"There's nothing in any of the churches. Father Demarco wasn't of any help either."

After Cameron's recount of the priest she'd found sniffing at the blood stained carpet in the diagnostics room, and the memory of the flower's he'd sent, they'd quickly made their way to him. He'd been cooperative and calm, but in the end hadn't been much help.

His patience already severely thinned, Foreman suddenly asked of the oncologist, "What the hell has you so fascinated?"

It took several seconds before Wilson responded distractedly. "Angelica Brown."

"Who's that?"

"A psych patient."

"What's this have to do with House and Chase?" Cameron asked, stepping closer to get a look at the file.

Wilson paused, weighing his words and how crazy they would undoubtedly sound to anybody who hadn't witnessed what he'd witnessed. "I don't think she's crazy. Well she is, but the reason for it isn't schizophrenia. I think whatever is happening to her, something similar is happening to Chase." James had been back a few times to see the woman and had watched and listened as she spoke to people that only she could see. What he would have labelled dementia not long ago, he know looked at more closely and really wondered not only about what she was seeing, but about what he and everyone else was missing.

"Could be an infection that's going away at her brain," Foreman suggested, his fatigue lifting at the possibility of a medical challenge.

"She could also be schizophrenic. We should be trying to find Chase and House."

Foreman was suitably chastised and went silent, eyes averted. Wilson wasn't.

"There's nothing we can do for them here."

"Here? As opposed to…wherever they are?" Cameron waited expectantly.

He'd said too much. Wilson briefly wondered if House rubbed off on all his fellows like this, or only the ones who lasted a certain amount of time under his tutelage.

Foreman jumped in. "You know where they are?"

Defeated Wilson sat back in his chair. He could have told them right then. Probably should have told them, but he drew it out, for no good reason except to keep them waiting. "Israel."

The shouts of surprise that followed the question hastily blurted out one over the other, the recriminations at him for withholding the information, James tuned it out. Even the part where Cameron was going to Cuddy.

"You should have told her as soon as you found out," Cameron finished. A moment later she was gone.

Action took a brief hiatus then. Eventually Foreman stood, recovered from his own shock and disbelief, and went to the desk. He spun the patient file around on the table top until it faced him and began reading.

"You're not going to join her?"

Foreman spared him an impatient and patronizing glance. "I'm sure she's got it covered." They both knew she did, her righteous indignation practically left an odour in the air. "I'd like to work on a case that I might actually solve without challenging organized religion."

"That still might not be this case."

---H/C---

God's work on earth would not, to most, include spying on others. Then again God was always watching, so Siva Jordan considered his work to be the mortal equivalent and thus felt no guilt or shame. He probably found too many ways to justify even his most heinous actions, because even faced with what he did and for whom, he slept well. It was probably for whom he did it that eased his conscience. Somebody had to do the dirty work.

They'd all learn soon, that was far too true.

"Jordan, what's he doing?" the voice in the headphones connected to his cellular asked almost timidly.

Leaning casually against an old brick wall outside a small bar catering to locals Jordan surreptitiously kept his eyes on his target.

"He's talking."

"Is that all?"

Is that all? Jordan shook his head wondering why he continued to answer to Voorhees when it was Antolovich that he respected of these two. "He's making plans. He's up to something that could complicate our duties." He waited several seconds before posing, "What would you like me to do?" and could feel as much as hear the uncomfortable shifting on the other end of the phone call. Voorhees was not a decision making man. He saw only the big picture and none of the details to achieve it. That was where Jordan came in.

"Do what you think is necessary."

The call ended with nothing further. Jordan shook his head in mild disgust. Spineless, old fool, he couldn't help but think, but chastised himself after the deed was done. He had his vague orders. Discretion was left in his very capable and very deadly hands.

As his target left the small establishment after having what looked like a drink and an uninteresting conversation with random patrons, Jordan set his course as well. It took him directly into the other man.

"Excuse me," Mayes said in Hebrew so flawless one might think him a native speaker of the language.

In English tinged with his Turkish accent Jordan returned, "No, excuse me, Mister Mayes. Such a coincidence that we would meet out here."

The polite apology written on the taller man's face shifted to a darker more calculating look as he recognized the man before him and his purpose in the Tenth Order.

---H/C---

Doctors Cameron and Cuddy thanked profusely the FBI agent that had come so quickly and taken the information about their two missing colleagues. Despite how awkward the interview had started out the agent had kept an open mind and jotted down the unbelievable details regarding Dr. Chase's condition when last they had seen him. He'd even listened patiently to Dr. Cameron's concern that perhaps a religious group had taken an interest in Chase, and pointed the agent in the direction of Father DeMarco.

"I'll update you when I can but as an open investigation I may not be able to give you many, if any, details," Agent Jerome warned.

Cuddy nodded her understanding. "Of course."

"I'll be in touch."

Cuddy turned back to her desk as soon as the FBI agent was a few feet beyond the outer doors of her office. Dr. Cameron stared after the man for a few seconds more, a faint warning having belatedly taken form in her mind.

"You think he'll look into it?"

Cuddy didn't look up from her paperwork but responded anyway. "Even if he didn't believe the details we gave him, he has a duty to investigate. He'll at least find that House and Chase are missing, and have to take it from there."

Cuddy looked up to convey in her expression her hope but also her fear that the FBI may not find or even look for their friends. The immunologist gave a thin nod and left. Cuddy went back to her paperwork under the pretence of doing work. The pen in her hand didn't move for several minutes.

Just outside the hospital Agent Jerome answered a call on his cell phone.

"Long break you're taking. Did you forget about our case?" his partner, who along with Jerome had been working late the past several nights, questioned.

"No, just had something to check out for a friend."

"…And?"

"Turns out it was nothing." Jerome tore out the pages of his notebook where he'd taken notes on the potential case. He crumpled and tossed them into a waste bin on his to his sedan. "As I suspected. Just had to be sure."

"Well get back here. I've covered for your dumb ass long enough."

"See you soon, Sunshine."

Jerome laughed at the aggravated huff just before the line went dead. The mirth from the interaction with his partner left him quickly to be replace by conflict. Should he look into the disappearance of these two men? Was it not his duty?

He fingered the gold cross underneath his tie and collared shirt. He reminded himself of his higher duty.

---H/C---

Mayes hadn't returned. House wished that he was more angry than worried. At least Chase was too uncomfortable to notice. The wounds had begun bleeding again. House clinched his jaw at the recent memory of waking to find Chase lying next to him, peacefully awake with growing stains of blood on the sheets below his wrists and on his pillow. At some time before House had awoken, Chase had been bestowed an invisible crown of thorns and nails through his wrists. It was a small blessing that the other injuries hadn't yet arrived.

"How is he?" Voorhees asked from behind House as the doctor continued his ministrations. He'd removed the chair wedged behind the door when he admitted that to tend to Chase he would need some supplies he didn't have in the room. Regrettably, that also meant unwanted visitors were stopping by.

"Weak, tired –exactly why he should be in a hospital."

The old man shook his head. "God will give him strength."

House knew his argument would be futile but the stubborn dog in him wouldn't let common sense go, although it wasn't as common around these people. And if he heard one more comment about God doing something for any of them, he'd hurt somebody. All the blind faith, the overwhelming piety was making him more than unhappy. Worse than stupid people, were people being stupid. What was the point of having a mind if it wasn't used? Faith, in his opinion, circumvented all the higher reasoning that set human's apart from the other animals, yet here were people happily doing away with the best gift their God might have ever given them; free will.

"I don't want to do this," Chase said weakly, his lips tainted deep cherry by the blood that rand down his face from the gouges on his forehead. Again, despite his position the blood seemed to have a mind of its own as it ran down Chase's face as though he was upright. The eerie image was only bolstered by the nearly dreamy expression on his face. Even with the pain making his limbs shiver and his skin damp with sweat, there was another less tangible, less describable facet to Chase's experience that balanced the physical experiences.

Still, as a human being, the physical suffering could not be discounted and making matters worse, they weren't allowing him to eat. Fasting, for the upcoming rituals, Voorhees had called it, while he and his cohorts gorged themselves on food and expensive wine. House had only been able to sneak Chase some crackers that morning and that wasn't nearly enough to keep up an adult male's energy.

"I'm afraid it's not up to you, Robert."

"It shouldn't be up to you either."

"But it is." Turning to House he ordered, "Get him ready. Mister Mayes is busy at the moment." House watched his exit, turning over the comment on Mayes in his head.

"Well, this is a fine mess you've gotten us into, Chase," House said once they were alone.

"Sorry."

"I was kidding," House snapped. He didn't really blame Chase but he wanted the banter he'd shared with the young man to come back. Even the terse words they'd shared last night would have been welcome. It would have been an indication that Chase wasn't feeling as bad as he looked. "I don't think I can blame you for the collective delusions of a group of idiots," he said in a tone that was gruff but gentle, while he wiped away more of the blood that streaked the lax face.

"You really don't believe any of it?" Chase asked once House had helped him to sit up in the bed.

"You don't believe any of it either," House countered.

"I believe in God, and angels and hell."

"Seminary school brainwashing," House excused and gave Chase the new shirt that had been provided for him to wear. House would have to tough it out in his old wrinkled attire.

"If you don't believe in God or something, then what matters?" Chase argued with a weak voice. "There's no morality, no good or evil, only nature."

"What's wrong with nature? Everything doesn't have to be a test. We're just animals that try not to do bad all the time." House helped him slip his arms into the shirt and then button up the front while their debate continued.

The blood loss made Chase's limbs heavy and his mind sluggish. He barely noticed his boss helping him dress. "Because nature excuses everything. If it's nature for a volcano to erupt and kill people then it's nature for people to kill other people too."

"Maybe it is," House shrugged. "Maybe we're just trying to achieve something better than our nature dictates." Chase shifted to the edge of the bed where House slipped on his pants. He'd stayed with Chase overnight, doing what he could to make sure he remained in good health; playing doctor the whole night (and not the fun type of doctor he'd sometimes resorted to paying some women for). And now he was forced to play nurse-maid as well.

He had to suppose it could have been worse. Instead of Chase he could be changing the pants of a wrinkly, incontinent man with boils and no teeth. Chase's smooth and skin and toned body was actually a welcome distraction. So while half his mind was on the debate –one he'd been meaning to have with Chase since he found out the young man had gone to seminary school –the other half of his mind was cataloguing the body he'd never before seen unclothed.

"Then why bother?" Chase asked still sounding tired, though the topic did manage to pull some life out of him. "And how would we know what's good without something to guide us?"

"We'd manage," House said distractedly. He couldn't help it. He was a human being, and a beautiful body was a beautiful body, even if they were both neck deep in a religious mystery they barely comprehended. Yet helping Chase put his pants on, sliding his hands up the strong thighs to the slender hips with tight, white briefs, was a distraction he could no more give up than he could stop breathing.

"You can't be serious," Chase said, too tired to notice that perhaps House wasn't being as clinical with his tasks as a good doctor should have been.

"You can't seriously expect me to have this conversation with you after we've been kidnapped by a bunch of lunatics who think you're some sort of heavenly or hellish deity, and brought to a country that is not my number one vacation destination!" House almost felt bad for his outburst. His thin distraction hadn't been much in the face of their current uncertainty and the undercurrent of preparation. Something was happening and they were helpless.

The outburst silenced the blond man for a moment, while the thrum of his wounds attempted to occupy his mind. Instead he focused and distracted himself. "Well…what number would this be?" Chase asked and sounded only curious as to the answer.

"What rank is Jerusalem on my list of vacation destinations?" House repeated rather dumbly.

Chase nodded, still looking as earnest as a tired, pained and hungry man could be. He needed this bit of normalcy. House tried to indulge him.

"Well…probably around two hundred. I'm not really one for pilgrimages."

Chase managed a weak and brief smile. He could accept that answer though he turned it over in his mind. He probably shouldn't have been amused by House's blasphemy. What was left of his seminary education insisted that he feel affront or perhaps pity. Instead he was intrigued by House's view and he welcomed this version of a puzzle. What were the other one-hundred and ninety-nine destinations?

The door to the room opened again. Father Antolovich entered. He stopped a step inside, taking in the sight of the sacred stigmata. He crossed himself, an action House saw when he glanced back. He had no choice then but attack the man's faith.

"If this is from God, why the inconsistencies? Some people get wounds in the wrists, others in their hands. You'd think God would have been able to choose one."

It was a cold man that could discuss and plan the death of another and only worry about how history would record it. Thus, it was not surprising to House that Antolovich responded with a patronizing smile.

"Robert," he addressed the youngest man, "where do you believe the nails in Christ were inflicted –hands or wrists?"

There was evidence and conjecture to support both scenarios but each believer had his or her own opinion. Chase was no different. Reluctantly, loathe to lend support to this man's theory, he responded.

"Wrists." His voice was tinged with defeat, resignation was setting in. His faith, perhaps, had brought all this on. He'd turned to it once wholly, and then turned away from it, to what Robert thought was the same degree. If he ever engaged in debate of religion or spirituality his words were without fervour. He played only to serve the side of the argument he felt fewer and fewer people were willing to defend. In the end however, none of it touched him. In his daily life he'd separated himself from faith, but it always lingered, like ghosts over his shoulder. And now that lingering seed of faith had grown thorns.

Antolovich smiled at him, then turned his gaze to House. "The person's faith is as much a part as are God's actions. He does, after all, work through us."

"Whatever lets you sleep at night."

Antolovich might think himself wise but he was lacking when it came to patience, and the stubborn American doctor was quickly devouring what little he owned. "Finish up. We're leaving."

"For where?"

The priest began for the door and responded casually over his shoulder, "The Church of Holy Sepulchre in the old city. Mister Mayes will be meeting us there."

The tone didn't sit well with House. Judging by the worry in Chase's eyes, it didn't sit there with him either. They didn't have time to ask questions, those assembled being so eager to get to their destination and begin what was quietly being referred to as 'The Awakening'.

Two inconspicuous beige sedans drove the group away. Clayton and his people in one and Antolovich, House, Voorhees and Chase in the other.

"Travelling light today?" House inquired. Forced to take the front passenger seat he had to twist around to keep his eyes on Chase, who was in the opposite corner, and Voorhees, who was behind him.

"The others are already in place. We've been waiting for this for sometime," Voorhess stated calmly.

Antolovich in the driver's seat didn't comment as he carefully made his way through the busy streets of the newer portion of Jerusalem to take them to the Old City.

In his corner of the car Chase subtly tried the door. He thought maybe, he could jump out when the car was moving slowly or stopped at a light, and disappear into one of the crowded streets. But the door didn't budge. He tried to pull the plastic pin in front of the window to release the lock but it didn't move. Damn child locks.

Chase clenched his teeth as the pain surged with the frustration of the situation. In so short a time he'd been dragged back into what he'd tried to run from. He was closer than ever to where he didn't want to be.

Just beyond the glass, mostly average people went about mostly average lives. Strangely many were familiar to Chase. He'd seen them before, seen through them before and witnessed their choices. A guiding shadow, a malevolent creature, a guardian angel –he saw many things walking a step behind the people on the crowded sidewalk. Some were brighter, others much darker. What joyous, magnanimous gesture might one of them perform? What despicable act might another?

The world grew darker, the sunlight loosing it potency as the spectre blossomed from air. Chase's heart rate began to climb as he watched the people become enveloped by the greyness, sinking into and becoming part of them. On some the hold went so deep their face contorted into inhuman monsters, the wicked madness taking over their minds. Not even children were spared. All the people were enveloped, the darkness thickened until it began to rush at him. Racing over other vehicles, over falling bodies, weaving through the column of fire that had burst from the ground and struck from the sky! Until it struck him, his head snapping to the side.

The blow had been almost non-existent –a light brush across his cheek. His mind however was reeling, while the world around him continued on, normal, undisturbed.

Finally Robert risked opening his eyes. Blinded at first by the sunlight, the eyes of the vehicles driver in the rear view mirror caught his for second before a touch to his cheek made him start and press himself into the corner. The motion and Chase's restrained cry of pain from it drew House's concern and he turned to see what was going on. Voorhees's hand followed Chase even after he moved away, regaining contact with the ashen skin.

"What do you see, my child?"

Chase tried to turn his head away and keep his sight on the man at the same time. "Don't touch me," he hissed.

"You're special. I only wish we'd seen it sooner." Chase didn't respond. Voorhees didn't remove his hand. "We were misguided. Blinded to the truth by our own narrow expectations and feeble understanding of the life-after."

In the front House tried to intervene, bring up his cane ready to smack the Deacon's hand away. He was just a touch too slow, allowing Antolovich to grab the other end of his cane to keep House from interfering.

"No more running. Hmm, my child?" Voorhees asked. Chase chanced a look at the man and saw the world behind the man warping as though he saw it through a rounded piece of glass. The strange distortion carved out a human-like form that nearly draped itself over the back of Voorhees, whispering and sinking tendril-like fingers into the man's mind. Voorhees moved his hand from Chase's face, to his bleeding wrists. Taking a tight hold the Deacon was immune to the pain he caused, though it was evident in both his victim's face and the sound of his breathing.

"Leave," Chase commanded in a desperate whisper.

Both occupants in the front of the vehicle heard but knew with great confidence that Chase was not speaking to them.

The creature pulled back, removing itself from Voorhees side. As though reluctant to go, it hung back, waiting.

"Go."

It went.

Voorhees let go. His hand now slick with blood, he brought it to his face. The others watched as the bloody hand moved closer and closer still to the man's lips. They thought he would lick it. It looked as though he wanted to. Instead Voorhees inhaled deeply, long and loudly –until the scent of blood blocked out everything in his mind save for the burning desire to control, to decide, to act without self-doubt.

Only a few seconds needed to pass before the man's mind returned to him, with all its many questions and reservations. With his clean hand, Voorhees retrieved a handkerchief and wiped the fragrant blood from this hand. There was no further conversation, only the heavy look between the Deacon and the Priest.

In his corner Chase rocked and shivered as the aches intensified. He had his hands to his chest, trying to give comfort to himself where there was none to be found. It was becoming harder think clearly, to lift the shroud of his waning faith and disturbing sights. He didn't dare look outside at the passing scenery or at the brick and stone structure of the Damascus Gate as they entered into the walled city of the old Jerusalem.

---H/C---

Angelica Brown's medical records were of no particular use. Nothing in her history hinted at anything but a woman whose mind was ill, and at sometimes her body as well.

"She's usually only here once a week to be evaluated for the drug trial," Henderson remarked tiredly. He'd joined doctors Foreman and Cameron in the diagnostics conference room and was half-heartedly working on the case. Mostly, the older doctor sat and poked holes in their theories.

"But she has an infection," Cameron added distractedly. She flipped a page in the notes and continued reading.

"Pneumonia is hardly noteworthy."

"It is when she's been hospitalize four times in the last six months for different infections."

To Dr. Foreman's rebuttal, Henderson had another. "The staff at her facility is overly cautious and she's covered under her family's Blue Cross plan. Of course they spare no expense for her."

Foreman shook his head. "If you don't think she has anything but schizophrenia and an infection, why are you letting us look at her file?"

Henderson shrugged. With his arms crossed and his gaze averted the motion looked petulant. They'd informed him that Wilson suspected Ms. Brown's situation may be related to Chase's. He'd told them that it was simply schizophrenia. Cameron and Foreman suspected that perhaps they were both wrong. Maybe Henderson did too; he'd provided the medical records.

"This new drug…"

"Sopalitor," Henderson supplied for Cameron.

"…it's being administered in combination with others."

"Yes, the trial is focused on the drugs success in a patient on other medications. Most patients like Miss Angelica require more than one treatment." The psychiatrist paused to glance at the two other doctors. "Neither of you have entertained the notion that what's happening to her is like what happened your colleague?" his tone made it hard to determine whether or not he'd considered any supernatural causes himself.

"There's an explanation we just have to find it," Cameron stated after a few seconds without a response.

Henderson nodded as though he'd expected such an answer. "Spoken like a true disciple of Doctor House."

"What? You don't think there's anything spiritual happening to her either."

"True, but when I say it I sound less like an arrogant jerk."

---H/C---

Sacred to many, the church was divided into different chapels for different faiths. The Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, the Armenians, Ethiopians and Muslims each had a part to call their own. Housed under one main structure, it was a tense environment for those who knew, only a shrine to the crucifixion site of a long-dead and then risen man to most of the visitors. Today the general public was not allowed inside, much to their disappointment.

Inside the church, up the stairs beyond the main entrance to the calvary, many people of the many faiths waited. Dressed in their ceremonial vestments and backing the intricate shrines and artworks to the crucifixion it was a somewhat gaudy and overbearing scene. Chase's eyes remained on the floor as he was lead through. Several paces behind House followed, his sharp eyes taking in the new surroundings.

Chants and prayers in many languages followed them, creating a sombre thrum within the old chambers. Finally the procession stopped. A rectangular slab of stone about the height of an altar stood with a vase of four candle burning at one end. On the other side was a row of nuns, each wearing habits of slightly different designs. They each represented some of the many monastery in the holy city and attempting to discern which was from where was a pointless exercise.

When he raised his eyes and saw them Chase glared. He couldn't help it. His practically natural aversion to the women who'd dedicated their lives to the church was ramping up. He nearly missed the entire oration being given by Deacon Voorhees while the other clergy of different religions gathered. At the end of it a question was posed.

Why where they asking? House wondered. Up until this point they'd threatened him to keep Chase in line and overpowered Chase whenever they couldn't to get him to do what they wanted. Yet now, at what appeared to be a crucial moment they were asking his permission.

"No." A quick, simple and clear response. Seemed it was the church that brought out the defiance in him.

Maybe Chase was expelled from seminary school.

Though he'd given a response, Chase knew that it wasn't over. They wouldn't shrug and say "okay. You can go," after dragging him all this way.

"Robert…" Voorhees began admonishingly.

"I said 'No'! You need my permission for this ritual, and I'm not giving it to you."

There was silence, the chants having ended when Voorhees had begun talking. Into the quiet somebody approached. Actually it was two, and one of them was stumbling badly. Chase pivoted to see what was causing the murmurs of low speech and his eyes widened.

"Warren!"

Voorhees stepped into Chase's path to keep him from approaching. Chase stopped but continued to stare. His friend was in a bad state. One eye was swollen almost completely shut, while dark bruises coloured the cheek under the other, as well as his jaw on the left side. Some internal pain kept him from standing upright so he was hunched forward, bound hands at his abdomen. Most of his weight was being carried on his right leg and in the moments where his tired and aching muscles caused a shift to the other, he winced.

At Warren's side Voorhees's henchman, Jordan, kept a tight grip on his captive's arm. "You're friend was making pitiful plans to whisk you away again. We couldn't allow that to happen."

"Men of God," Chase spat accusingly.

"Soldiers of God," Voorhees corrected and returned Chase's glare with a most infuriating expression of serenity. Sudden arrogance in such a small, feeble man.

Jordan became impatient. He squeezed and twisted intensifying the pain at Warren's shoulder knowing that the recently dislocated joint would be aching intensely even on its own.

Mayes bit back his moan of pain by clenching his jaw and holding his breath but the expression said it all. Chase tried to approach again, and again Voorhees blocked him.

"His fate is in your hands. This is your choice. Accept the divine blessing and the anointing and be free of suffering. For the Lord shall open his arms and welcome back his champion."

Face stony with grief Chase stepped back, colliding with the stone slab, chest heaving with increasingly burning breaths. He knew he was trapped. Around him the others stood silent, waiting, hoping. Their conflict over the method of attaining the subject's cooperation was not enough to more than shadow their duty. He met the hard gaze of Warren's one open eye. Warren was ready to accept whatever punishment they threw at him. His eyes told Robert that he would gladly take it. If it came to such, he would die happily in the knowledge that his Robin was still safe and whole.

Chase opened his mouth. The words didn't come out immediately.

"Don't!" House yelled, already too sure of his fellows decision. "Don't be the idiot I know you're not!"

"Old man, would you like to be next?" Jordan called back while House tried to make his way through the bodies that had no regard for the difficulties of a cripple.

House was stopped as he reached the inner circle of those assembled. He yelled, threw the worst insults he could imagine towards the church and threatened everybody with power he knew he didn't have. He was almost panicked. This building and these people didn't sit right with him. And religions had a long history of killing people. Chase wasn't going to be next.

The blue eyes closed and opened again when his face was to the vaulted ceiling. Panels of gold followed the curve of the high dome from the center where sunlight filtered down through the skylight. He stared up at it, the light so dazzling and bright his eyes hurt. A dream came back to him.

"Yes," he answered at last.

Housed hurled insults at him.

Mayes begged him to take it back.

Chase closed his eyes. He knew what he'd done –given up his freedom, possibly his life to save two people, two friends. While delicate hands began to divest him, Chase admitted that he would have done the same for anyone. An awareness had begun to stir in him, telling him that this was not their conflict, yet.

He hung his head and kept it down while he was exposed. The church had not felt so chilly before, nor the eyes on him so heavy and intrusive. His shirt was undone and slipped off his shoulders to fall in a wave of fabric to waiting hands. The urge to wrap his arms around himself, shelter what he could, would have been given into were it not for the hands that held his arms while they worked off the bandages at his wrist.

The most uncomfortable was the removal of his pants and underwear. His aversion for nuns steadily increased. Naked as Adam in Eden, bleeding like the stigmatists before him, Chase turned to the old slab where the nuns indicated he should lay. Sooner than he could get his limbs to move the hated sting of lashes across his back struck him and brought the Australian to his knees. He used his arms to hold onto the cool granite surface while the flagellation continued and the gashes appeared like a curse on his back.

The last few brought cries of pain from him. When it ended the sounds of his pain echoed for an unnatural stretch of time, while his pants and moans went on in harmony.

The prayers had begun again in earnest. They'd been witness to the miracle as it was bestowed. The scent of jasmine heightened and the hearts lightened as they became increasingly assured of their actions.

Chase had to be helped onto the stone. Once he was laid out they began washing him with water, simple soap, and cloths –humble tools for such ornate surroundings. While they washed him, the various clergy said their prayers. Mayes and House were silently watching Chase. House had thought to turn away and give Chase the privacy that nobody else would afford him. He didn't. More so than privacy he thought Chase needed support. Not his forte but he was still enough of a human being to know that a trusted gaze free of shame or loathing would tell Chase that there was nothing for which he had to be ashamed.

It seemed to take hours, this ritual cleansing and then anointing with special oil. They redressed Robert when it was done in white robes. First a small one was wrapped around his hips to cover his genitals and then a loose one was draped over his shoulders. As the light fabric settled around the slender body a white powder gently lifted from the clothes into the air. Being so close Chase didn't see it, or notice that each breath he took was laced with it. Being far enough away House did notice.

They were moved again. Voorhees lead Chase to another small room, the Chapel of St. Helena but only a few of the various clergymen were allowed to follow. They were all careful not to touch Chase and to give him room. When he stumbled, nobody was allowed to help him up. Even when his footprints began leaving marks of blood on the floor and his steps were accompanied by agony, nobody helped. Mayes and House were brought along, their usefulness not having ended, but they were kept away from Chase as well.

The final destination of the thinned group was not the Chapel of St. Helena, but a lesser known chapel only recently discovered. A steel gate was unlocked and down to a stone quarry the group went.

"The Chapel of Saint Vartan," Voorhees announced softly as they group found their rightful positions around the fairly large open area beneath the shallowly arched and ornately carved ceiling.

Numerous candles danced in the dark and provided a soft lighting for the centuries old room. Carved low on the rock walls of the room were centuries old drawings and messages, like ancient graffiti. Although it appeared almost as vandalism, the messages written in old languages were actually important notes and messages and they made this Chapel of St. Vartan so very special.

Standing in the middle of the slightly oblong room Chase was made to wait for the next unwanted step in this ritual. He was light-headed, dizzy and ready to fall over. As the prayers began, again many in many languages, he found a beat to them. He closed his eyes and let the beat reverberate through him. The slick liquid flowing down his limbs and his head stained his white garments further. They began to stick to him, lightly tugging at his torn flesh when he listed this way or that.

Suddenly the words and the beat stopped. Chase felt as though he was floating far away, above all the cares and fears, mostly his own.

"Why are they stopping?" House asked quietly of Mayes who was knelt near him. Their view of Chase was hampered by the two people in front of them and they couldn't move with Jordan watching them.

"It's time for a new book," Mayes informed with a haggard voice. Just as he finished speaking Voorhees stepped back and Clayton stepped forward. He held a heavy tome. It looked old and fragile but it's endurance through its obvious years said that it must be very important. "The Key of Solomon," Mayes said hanging his head as his failure was completed.

"Somewhere you all lost your way," Clayton began arrogantly. He flipped slowly through the thick pages, dragging out his part, reminding all those that choose to deny him and his followers that they were now the ones with the power. Without them all the faith in the world would have been for naught. "Your religion clung to faith, became passive and weak. Always begging, asking, never with the strength to command. Denying the strength religion once had."

"Yes, you're arrogance knows no bounds," Antolovich replied patronizingly. A hum of amusement tipped the composure of the religious men. Clayton seethed. "Please," Antolovich implored scathingly, "continue."

Clayton went back to his aged book.

"Again we command ye with vehemence, and we exorcise ye with constancy, that ye and all your comrades come unto us in an agreeable and gracious manner like the breeze, to accomplish successively our various commands and desires. Come ye, then, by the virtue of these names by the which we exorcise ye…"

"What is it? What's written inside?" House demanded, his eyes flitting around as the air pricked his skin and made his hair stand on end.

"Spells…it's a grimoire."

Words were being spoken again but these weren't like the other ones. There was not beat to lull Chase into comfort and take away his pain. There was only one voice and his words caused a pain in him somewhere deeper than his body.

"We will compel ye, both ye and the Prince of Darkness. Come ye, come ye, angels of Darkness; come hither before this circle without fear, terror, or deformity, to execute our commands, and be ye ready both to achieve and to complete all that we shall command ye."

A breeze picked up. Dust spun into spirals on the floor. The candles danced a more vigorous and violent ballet until finally they went out and the room was plunged into pitch-black, obscurity. Invisible forces churned in the blackness. Their touch was both cold and warm, comfort and malice, messenger and warrior.

Clayton continued, his equanimity not upset outwardly by they storm of unknown around him.

At the center Chase was barely managing to hold his mind together. He was being pulled apart. His body twisted, his head flailed side to side, and back and forth –unnatural, painful movements for a human being. As the last words reached him, touched him, he reached upwards holding out his hand for something to save him in this last moment. A drop of blood fell from his wrist to his face, adding to the red streaks. Nothing else came down to him. He went slack. He would have fallen, but he was caught.

In his dream he saw his reflection in the water and the forest burning behind them. They both lay down, cheek to cheek, and sank.

A light that cast no shadows slowly filled the room just enough to allow sight. They saw Robert Chase, bleeding, limp, and yet somehow still upright. In the tense silence they all waited. House quickly noticed that around his back the clothing Chase wore was restrained and compressed against him as though somebody were holding him. Somebody was.

They came into sight slowly –contours of a man, a lovely man. Transparent at first, he became mostly opaque, tall and slender, he held Chase up with one arm around his back allowing his head to rest against his shoulder. With his free hand he gently stroked Chase's cheek trying to rouse him with the tender touch.

House shivered suddenly, violently. It nearly knocked him off his feet. Then he felt something brush past him, walking out from the small recess in the wall where ancient graves had not been uncovered. Gaping blue eyes followed the dark spectre as it too became more opaque and took on the form of a handsome man. More followed, seeping through the walls, into the room, crowding it but leaving the number of occupants the same.

They formed two rows facing each other, Chase and the unknown being between them.

Soon there was a pinch in the blond man's features as his awareness returned. He opened his eyes. The blue-green was gone. Luminescent white was in its place.

"Chase?" House whispered. His fellow didn't hear, or just didn't respond. Instead he stared at the man supporting him while he found his footing again.

"Azrael." The soft whisper cut through the room like a concussive wave.

Azrael smiled. His eyes brightened. His hold shifted and tightened.

"I missed you," Chase continued. His voice maintained the familiar accent and he still sounded like Chase, yet there were subtle differences that made his voice more buoyant. It felt like his whisper could carry through any medium forever, as clear as if he'd said it with his lips at your ear.

"Archangel Azrael," Antolovich said lowly. Relief poured out and anticipation poured into him. "He's an archangel," was his inference, his bias finding easily confirmation of his theory.

From one of the rows of spectres a handsome man with dark hair stepped forward. House felt his jaw slacken as he took in the man's appearance. He looked like Chase. Sharper features, slightly greater height, darker hair, thinner lips, squarer jaw, but he was undeniably, unmistakeably a version of Chase in appearance.

Feeling the presence at his back Chase looked and his expression changed. The simple happiness that had touched his face a moment ago bled away and Chase swung his arms around the being who proceeded to hold him back just a tightly.

"Azazel." The whispered name carried through the room again. "Brother."

The holy men shook with uncertainty, which quickly morphed into fear. What sort of abomination were they dealing with? To which side did he truly belong?

In a burst of vehemence Voorhees took the grimoire from Clayton and started to flip through the book, looking for a specific passage.

Chase let one arm release from Azazel and took Azrael's hand. Azrael kissed the back of the hand holding his and then leaned in to kiss the blond head that still remained tucked under Azazel's chin. It was the last gesture he gave before the Deacon's words began to pull at them, banishing the spectres from the room. Their outrage and anger could not find their target soon enough and they faded away, unable to stop it. Without support, Chase collapsed to the ground, his coverings billowing around him before settling.

"What are you doing?" A man with a distinctly Arabic accent asked of Voorhees.

"We must know which one he is?"

Despite his strong words, Voorhees made no move forward so Antolovich braved the unknown instead and approached the weak figure. Chase had pushed himself up but could not seem to get further with his quivering limbs. His mind was still reeling over being so suddenly alone that he didn't notice the man that approached him or hear his words until he was touched. With his fingers under the Chase's chin, Antolovich raised the face to look at him. Locked in a stare with those bright, bottomless eyes Piotr briefly forgot his question. He took a deep breath and pulled back a little. Finally he forced his question out.

"I have many names," the voice that was Chase's responded slowly.

The question was repeated. "Who are you?"

Yawning silence grew while they waited for the answer. Even those who hadn't believed held their breath.

"I am Mastema."

---H/C---

**End Chapter 8**


	10. The Unknown Truth

**Chapter 9 – The Unknown Truth**

---H/C---

Antolovich took a step back. House glanced around at the sharp indrawn breathes.

The bright glow that had only shone from Chase's eyes began to seep out through the rest of him as well until finally the room was so brightly lit that the observers' eyes watered. The radiant man remained on the ground, his presence making hearts beat faster and minds reel. At his back three sets of translucent and brilliant, nested wings folded out of his back. They passed through the garments as though either they or the wings didn't truly exist in the same realm –each set a little offset down the length of the man's upper back.

The wings relaxed down gracefully, spreading like a shimmering blanket across his back.

Ethereal in his splendour, this was indeed a heavenly host, and not just an archangel, dominion, or virtue. If what they'd heard was true, this was Mastema, a seraph, locked in the body of a mortal man.

"Robin," Mayes moaned forlornly. He didn't expect what he thought was Mastema to turn to him. Excited at the prospect of his friend still existing somewhere in there Mayes forgot himself and his situation, and tried to move forward. His injuries brought him to all fours, his bound hands barely holding him up. Jordan's boot to his stomach brought him to the ground.

Air shifted in sorrow and torment as the seraph called out. "Warren!" He attempted to stand but both the body and soul were tired. He stumbled and crawled over, the assembled religious dignitaries parting for him as he went.

"Robin?" Mayes asked of the being that reached his side. Chase nodded, unfamiliar luminous eyes and face still conveying the conflicted and shamed expression that he'd seen too often on his friend's face. "Mastema?" he then asked more cautiously.

Mastema hung his head and nodded.

Cautiously, as though afraid he might scare him off Chase reached out. His fingers fell lightly on the bruised face. His touch tingled with warmth and comfort. Mayes took a deep breath and closed his eyes as the relief from his injuries washed over him, spreading outward from the ghostly touch on his skin.

Standing close by, House watched everything happening with disbelieving eyes. This Mastema-thing was in his fellow and now it was taking away pain. House lowered himself to kneel next to the man he knew only as Chase, who turned to look at him. When their eyes met House felt a heavy weariness lift off him. The creases of mistrust and misery relaxed into simple lines on his face and flicker of something that resembled hope surged for a moment.

Lost in a trance House didn't notice Voorhees and Antolovich approaching Chase's back. Cruel hands slipped around the smooth neck, bringing with it the cold touch of a metal choker. It clasped shut and the moment it did the light from the uncommon man dimmed and he closed his eyes as though in pain.

Chase tried to remove the collar but his hands couldn't even touch it without a terrible burning.

The light from him and from his eyes faded and Chase felt stronger as the other part of him receded leaving just the human male behind.

"No, Mastema," Antolovich chastised. He was handed another brace, smaller than the one he'd fit around Chase's neck. This one went around his right wrist, over the smears that remained from the wounds that had spontaneously healed. As the bracelet snapped closed Chase recoiled. House was there to catch him but neither could get the bracelet off.

"Take it off!" House yelled. Chase was in such a panic that House felt his own anxiety climb in counterpoint.

"Please, take it off. Please…"

"We can't allow that, Mastema."

The fight drained and House had to use both his arms to keep Chase up. The resplendent wings on his back had dimmed and vanished. The brush of them against the back of House's hand faded like a breeze.

"The last one," Voorhees prompted. Antolovich nodded and attached the last bracelet to the other wrist. And in half of a sudden, it ended. The glow from the young man and the light that filled the quarry grew fainter until they were both nothing. The candles relit and provided their soft light once again.

"Chase…Robert, come on." House gave him a bit of a shake. He shifted the smaller man, getting the head that was tilted back to loll to the left and rest on his shoulder. "Chase…" His hair was damp with sweat, making it stick to the pale forehead. The darkness around the once gleaming eyes was back. The bright creature of grace and passion was lost again in the frail body that housed it, they thought.

---H/C---

Foreman was nearly to the patient's room, his half-finished coffee in one hand, some notes he'd made in the other. An eerie normalcy had descended upon him. The day had started with the review of Angelica Brown's medical history and proceeded from there like any other day and any other, solvable case. He'd taken a break to get a coffee, since none had been made in the conference room, and was anxious to see if Cameron had garnered anything new from the patient. What he found was a state of panic.

"What's going on?" Foreman jumped to action, assisting the nurses in strapping down the thrashing and screaming woman.

"I was talking to her and suddenly she starts talking to people who aren't here!" Cameron explained over the fray.

"It's not time yet! Don't give up! Please give in! Don't let them hurt you! Accept the pain! Let go! Let go!" Her contradictory statements were not understood and the final pleas went unheeded. The straps were tightened.

"She's never been like this," one of the nurses added. "Her medication has always kept her delusions pretty tame."

After a few moments of fruitless struggle against the padded restraints, Angelica calmed, smiled even, as though comforted by something. They were halfway through a collective sigh of relief when she began to seize. The uncoordinated contractions throughout her body had her flailing as much as was possible while tied down, and perhaps a little more. The jerky movements pulled and twisted at her restrained limbs, threatening to do significant damage. Once again the medical staff tried to hold her in place while she rode out the episode.

"Get the Ativan!" Cameron yelled. Foreman abandoned his hold on her legs and dashed over to a supply cabinet. Expertly the clear liquid was loaded into a syringe. He returned to the bedside quickly, ready to administer the dose. Very quickly the seizure ended. The patient seemed to have fallen asleep. Curious and confused glances flitted between the doctor's and nurses.

Cameron sighed, straightening herself. "Well that worked quickly."

Foreman wanted to respond, but wasn't sure how to. He met his colleagues eyes and held up the syringe, which still contained the clear solution with the powerful sedative.

"I didn't give her anything."

---H/C---

Something was going to happen, House was certain. From the spot against the wall where Mayes had been sequestered, he kept glancing at House and giving him meaningful stares. Were this a gay bar House would have thought the man was coming on to him. However, this was a very holy church and Mayes wasn't coming on to him.

"Chase, what's my name?"

"Gregory Pain-in-my-ass Jonathan House," the man next to him mumbled into his knees. He had his legs drawn up, his arms wrapped around them and his face buried in his knees.

"What day is it?"

"Christ, House! I have no idea!" The mild profanity turned a few heads but Chase didn't notice and House didn't care. His concern was Chase, who had awoken from his unconsciousness twenty minutes ago and had been withdrawn and irritable ever since.

They were still in the Calvary, seated on the floor at one side of the main foyer. Mayes was at the other. House would have been there too, separated from Chase like the Deacon had instructed everyone. It was the unusual unconsciousness that worried those assembled and thus the doctor was allowed near the patient –couldn't have him dying just yet.

"Chase."

"What now?"

"Look at me."

The white clad shoulders rose and fell in what was likely an aggravated sigh. Chase looked at him. House leaned in closed.

"Your pupils are still dilated," House told him. He had assumed the powder that stirred from the garments Chase wore was some sort of drug to aid in the ritual –possibly a sedative to make him more relaxed, but maybe a stimulant given the twitchiness.

"How long was I out for?"

"Nearly an hour."

"Guess it's not enough time for the stuff to wear off." Chase buried his face back in his knees. He was sounding more coherent and more like himself than he had been when he first woke. Twenty minutes ago he'd looked lost and scared, and so agonizingly confused that House had wanted to go to him. Nobody had been allowed near him though, and when House tried, he was forcibly withheld. Eventually they did let him near but he wasn't allowed to touch. When Chase had reached out for him they pulled House back.

"Take your clothes off."

"What?"

"Think, Chase," House implored impatiently. "There powder is in the fabric." Chase grabbed a bit of the cloth and shook it. He watched carefully and as the powder passed through a ray of light, both were seen. "If it can get through your skin you're not going to get any better." Thankfully the garments had pooled at his waist and hips, leaving his legs exposed such that he wasn't constantly inhaling the powder when he leaned forward. Still, it was wise to remove it.

Chase started to. His trembling hands and weak arms gathered the fabric ready to throw it over his head and off.

"No, Mastema."

Chase stopped. His eyes were frozen forward as he fought the internal conflict. His arms fell to his side when he lost.

"Chase, take it off," House ordered again but Chase remained staring forward.

Seeing that his order was being obeyed Voorhees turned back to the group with which he had been conversing. They were discussing the ramification of what they had just discovered and were as buzzed with excitement as stoic old men could be.

House stared at Chase then to Mayes, who gave him a sad look in return before looking away. House had been and was still hoping that what he'd seen was a hallucination of some sort –or water spiked with LSD, a head injury, anything. He'd been seeing some strange things these last few days but that last episode truly trumped them all. House wasn't sure what to believe. His own eyes could deceive him, his ears could mishear, his brain could misinterpret. But his heart –not cold, frozen, dead, or made of stone like so many would like to believe –his heart could not lie. Heart, mind, soul, whatever the designation, it was telling him that what he'd experienced was true.

House slipped his eyes to the dulled man next to him. The dishevelled hair fell across his eyes, stains of blood still marked his body and his clothes, and dust stuck to sweat. With exception of the turbulence in his eyes, nothing else hinted at the seraph Voorhees and the others claimed to have taken residence in Robert Chase.

A soft clunk punctuated the end of House's reverie. From the doorway to the right of him a metallic canister rolled over to him. He couldn't see it but he could hear a gas seeping out. A glance at Mayes confirmed House's suspicion. Making sure no one had noticed House rolled the canister over to the group of clergymen. The soft touch he'd given it put it closer to them but it didn't hit them and they didn't hear it. House held his breath, Mayes did the same. House covered Chase's nose and mouth to make sure he held his breath too.

When the first person began to sway Mayes sprang into action and House followed. Siva Jordan was quick to notice the motion but his body was already being affected by the gas hissing out of the canister. He never had a chance to duck the two handed blow that Mayes struck across his head.

House was hurrying Chase to the exit and the young man went docilely. They met their help at the narrow stairway that led to the church from the main entrance; four men with gasmasks over their faces and guns in their hand. They escorted them out. House grit his teeth as he took the stairs down. Eighteen of them and getting up them had been bad enough. Now he had to get both himself and Chase down them in good time, with armed men urging him to go faster and Mayes yelling it from behind.

They burst out of the church and into the afternoon sun. Two black cars were waiting. Mayes jumped into the passenger seat, one of their rescuers took the wheel, while the others went to the second car and took off before all the doors were even closed.

"Mastema! Stop!"

House cringed. He was nearly at the car, just a step more. Chase was just a step behind him, but was suddenly frozen in place.

"Chase, come on!" House urged. He saw the internal conflict in Chase's clenched jaw and the fisting and relaxing of his hand, but he couldn't move.

"Robin!" Mayes called from the car.

"Chase," House held out his hand, somehow knowing that for Chase to take another step he had to chose to do so. He'd have to go against an order issued to him that he was bound –for some reason House didn't know –to obey. "You have to choose for yourself."

Behind him, moving clumsily thanks to the gas they had inhaled the people with the depressing plan for Chase approached.

"Please-" House was ready to beg and curse but Chase raised his arm slowly, like the bracelet on his wrist weighed fifty pounds. He grasped House's hand. House didn't have time to reflect on the look in Chase's eyes. He yanked, hard enough that Chase's shoulder would probably hurt. It had the desired effect of getting Chase to stumble forward. In spite of whatever forces he felt weighing him down, House didn't feel anything but the weight of his body as Chase fell into him and he landed them both in the back seats of the car.

"Go! Go! Drive!" House ordered though the driver had already gotten the idea and was off the moment they were in. House scrambled to help Chase and get both their legs into the car before their maniac of a driver came too close to something harder than their limbs. When the door was at last closed House lay back and breathed. His heart was racing, his leg was aching like mad but he and Chase were safe, for now.

In the front Mayes used the knife the driver handed him to cut the plastic ties that had bound him. He twisted to look at the other two passengers. House was recovering. Chase was ensconced in the older man's arms dazed and upset. His left arm was shaking. Mayes strained further so that he could hold the shaking hand and examine the bracelet.

"What is it?"

Mayes took a moment to think before he responded to House. "There's a symbol on the bracelet. It's what makes him obedient to them."

"Almost obedient," House corrected and wasn't able to help the squeeze of reassurance he gave Chase. Chase responded by looking briefly into House's eyes. "Can you take it off?"

"Not right now." As though it pained him to do so, Mayes let go. The quivering limb dropped and Chase didn't move it. The difficult angle was bad for his shoulder, and House didn't think Chase needed more aches. He reached over and grasped the hand pulling it to rest between them.

The wild driving had toned down to simply breaking the speed limit. Not too long after, they stopped in a more sparsely populated neighbourhood. The driver got out and after a last goodbye he dashed to the car he'd been following, the one with the others responsible for their escape. The first car tore off, their job done. Mayes crossed the console between the front seats and took the wheel.

Chase, meanwhile, took no notice of what was going on around him. His thoughts were repetitive and tormenting. He'd disobeyed. He'd disobeyed. He'd disobeyed. His left arm continued to shake and his insides clenched. He'd disobeyed.

He was supposed to stop but he hadn't; he'd chosen to move. He could feel the heat of the symbol on his wrist. It was a dull ache, not nearly as bad as the nail-wounds that had been their not too long ago, but the hurt echoed in his head, making it worse. He'd chosen this pain. He'd done this to himself. Actually, he reasoned depressingly, this situation was entirely his fault. He'd chosen this life and he was paying for his disobedience.

"It's okay, Chase," a deep, sure voice told him.

Chase. That was his name. Robert Chase, a physician, an Australian, a man who had to answer to no one but that whom he chose. Free will, not God's will.

His left arm stopped shaking. He returned the pressure on his hand.

---H/C---

The winding trip through the central Judean Mountains took them vaguely north-west. Mayes's destination was a city on the outskirts of Tel-Aviv where they would be able to blend in for a little while.

House felt the motion of the car change. "Why are you stopping?"

"He's covered in blood. We need to blend in where we're going, not stand out." Mayes pulled the car off the road and put it into park before turning off the engine. "Under that bridge," the rickety one just ahead, "there's a small river. It's calm. He can clean up there."

Chase began to right himself to sit up in the back seat. House did the same, precipitating a protest in the form of an ache from his left shoulder. While he rubbed it away House took in the new surroundings. Untamed wilderness from the gravel shoulder onward, into the unfamiliar flora of this alien country. With no choice but to brave the unknown House opened the door. A gust of cool air made him shiver. He took off his blazer.

"Here." He draped it over Chase's shoulders. The garment wrapped around his hips barely covered his privates. It would do even less to ward off the cool breeze.

Any word of thanks was useless, as House stepped out before Chase could utter it. Following slowly, Chase pulled the clothing tighter around him. He had nothing to protected his feet from the rough, cold ground. As they trekked down the gentle slope to the river bank he could feel the dampness of the earth chilling his soles. He stared down at them as they walked.

"What?" House asked from over his right shoulder. "Yeah, you have great feet," he said, though that was not the body part he'd been trying, with only minimal success, to tear his eyes from as he'd followed behind Chase down to the river. Yes, he knew the situation was serious, but he'd taken a reprieve in the simple topic.

"It's nothing," Chase eventually replied. He removed the jacket House had given him and draped it over the nearest sturdy branch near the river's muddy bank. He stepped barefoot into the cold river. The temperature pricked at his skin while the silky currents flowed over his feet and past, taking with it the red taint of blood. The fluid clothes he'd been made to wear at the Church in Jerusalem had adsorbed the blood it contacted and smeared it up his arms, legs and down his back. He crouched to dip his hands and wrists into the water, rubbed them and began to clean the stains.

While Chase cleaned himself, Mayes and House talked.

"Where's the nearest airport. We need to get out of here before they find us."

"In ten days it'll be too late for them to follow through with their plans. We just have to lay low until then. I know a place where we can go. It's not far."

"You don't even know what they're planning for him or why," House hissed.

Mayes shrugged, the motion carrying nonchalance he didn't feel. "I know enough not to trust them. I know he won't survive whatever they have planned." House looked away. A not entirely appropriate sense of guilt nipped at his conscience. The conversation he'd overheard during their stay in the mansion in Jerusalem had convinced him of, if not of the insanity of these people, their determination to see this through.

"What exactly is he?" House had to ask. He'd ignored the events in the church, mostly because, save for the one moment in the stone chapel, Chase continued to be his annoying, unsociable self. The analyst in him, however, would not allow him to avoid evidence just because he could not dream up a scientific explanation just yet.

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"He says he's Mastema. Mastema is a soldier of heaven, among the highest rank of the heavenly hosts. Some attribute the plagues of Egypt to Mastema. When Jesus was tested in the desert some say it was Mastema who tempted him."

"Sounds like Mastema does all the dirty work," House said bluntly.

How could Mayes not agree? "I just don't understand what he's doing here."

"Maybe Chase is possessed." Shouldn't he have said that with a laugh? It seemed the kind of suggestion at which House would have usually laughed.

Mayes treated it like a serious option –having seen possessions before he didn't doubt the possibility –but didn't agree. "I don't think so. You saw what I saw. It was one body, one soul. No conflict over who owned the body or mind."

"What I saw was a bright figment with wings hugging his evil twin and other equally unbelievable people."

"I think those were other…players –from both sides."

"Heaven and hell?" House deduced with no small amount of misgiving. "Most bosses would frown on fraternization with the enemy."

"You'd think," he muttered. "But non-corporeal politics aren't my expertise. And they weren't always on opposite sides."

"Or so the legend goes," House scoffed in a parody of an eerie voice.

"Fine, you tell me why Mastema, a soldier of heaven, looks so much like Azazel, a soldier of hell, if they aren't related."

"So, you really think he's…Mastema."

"He said he is."

"Everybody lies."

Mayes knew things House didn't. He knew what those prayers and chants and symbols on the ceiling of the chapel meant. "He couldn't lie. We just can't interpret the truth correctly yet." Warren abandoned his conversation with House and went to Chase who needed help washing the blood from his back.

Watching the two of them, House felt like an intruder. He'd been more of one at other times and never felt like this. On this occasion, where Warren cupped cold river water and poured it over the smooth back, using the contact of his hand to ease some of the chill that made Robert shiver, House wanted to turn away. He held fast though. Because with the clothes over his hips now saturated, the sunlight gleaming in the droplets of water that clung to the curves and planes of flesh and his hair bright as a halo in the natural light, the image was not worth giving up.

He could almost see the wings.

Suddenly Mayes whipped his head to the side to look in the direction of the highway from which they'd just come.

"What's wrong?"

Mayes wiped his expression away and replaced it with an easy smile for the benefit of the other man. "Nothing's wrong."

Chase looked down at his hands in the moving water. "I know when you're lying." A cool, wet hand brushed his cheek removing the last trace of blood, then worked quickly and removed the metal braces adorning Chase's wrists and neck. A previously ignored ache vanished when he was free of the bindings, allowing Chase to breathe easier. With one last light caress Mayes stood up and walked out of the river shallows to the bank, unconcerned about his soaked shoes. He kept his eyes turned to the highway above them and listened to the sound of the passing cars that couldn't be seen through either the foliage or over the bridge's side-barrier.

After several seconds of useless observation, Mayes's shoulders set. His eyes were sad, glassy with tears even.

"I have to go," Mayes said to House as he approached. "Watch out for him."

"Where are you going? He's your job, not mine," House emphasized. He didn't bother trying to hide his suspicion. Mayes took a deep breath. House watched his shoulders shudder as he forced the air out of his lungs. When Mayes went to go past him to go back to the car, House raised his cane, blocked his path. They were shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye, and House could read people.

"Don't leave without saying good-bye. You might be the first one to bother," House informed simply. Eye contact was lost when Mayes looked away. Thinking that Mayes didn't want to make it harder on himself, since Chase always seemed to care about people who didn't care enough about him, House removed his wooden obstacle from the dark-haired Aussie's path. Mayes didn't take it.

It took several seconds to sturdy himself. Finally he was strong enough to face his Robin. Reluctantly, House turned his back and studied with feigned interest the flora nearby.

"I have to go."

The tone of voice put Chase on guard. "Go where?"

What came next? Mayes didn't know, but he'd brave the undiscovered country for this man. "Just to see some people." He smiled softly and traced along the brow and down the face.

"You're lying," Chase stated. His head was tilted a little to the left, his expression set with annoyance.

"Yeah, I am." He continued to smile.

Chase's frown deepened. "Are you going to tell them where they can find me again? Did they promise more money this time?"

That stung. Like a vulture with razor-sharp talons, Robert knew the most vulnerable parts to strike.

"I'd never do something so stupid again," Mayes returned.

"Then stay." Chase stepped closer. He met Warren's eyes. "Prove it."

But Warren couldn't allow himself to be manipulated. He cupped Robert's face with both hands. "I love you. You know I'm not lying. That has to be proof enough."

Chase's hands drew into fists. Before he could beg Warren not to go, or threaten bodily harm if he tried to, Chase was being kiss. Warren was taking no prisoners, forcing his mouth open and wrapping his arms around so tightly Chase might bruise. There was no way he could not kiss back. The anguish encouraged them closer, strengthened the heat, and deepened the embrace.

"Do you love me?" Warren asked moving his kiss across the face, skimming his hands over the most intimates of areas.

"Yes," was the choked reply.

"Please…" Warren carded a hand through the soft, gilded hair. "Please, say it"

"…I love you," Chase confessed, his eyes to the sky. "…always love you." And for a moment the blue eyes dimmed to be overtaken by a searing white. A blink and the blue and green returned. "I love you."

Warren would take those words with him, wherever it was he went. They would be his paradise, his dream of ever after.

He touched their lips together one last time, in a kiss so sweet and natural Warren's resolve firmed. He grasped Robert by his arms and broke the kiss with a shove that sent the shorter man into the shallow river. Chase would never let him go unless Warren forced it and Warren was not strong enough to fight the argument his eyes would hold. He marched away without a look back. The splashes and the sputtering that followed had House turning to face them. His surprise at what he thought would be a peaceful goodbye turning into a fight written clearly on his shadowed face.

"Warren!" Chase called and was ignored. Warren stalked up the hill, quickly disappearing in the brush. "Warren!" His haste caused Chase to slip on the muddy embankment. Dark patches clung to him but he barely noticed. His remaining strength had been sapped by the river's cold. The blood loss, the forced fasting, the emotional turmoil culminated in the deepest heaviest fatigue Chase had ever felt.

Still, he forced himself up.

"God damn it, Warren, don't do this," Chase intoned in a pair of laboured breathes.

"Chase, let him go." House tried to take him by the arm but Chase pulled away, so violently that it sent him to the earth again.

"Don't touch me you wretched, old, bastard!" Watching him petulantly wiping some mud from his face, House couldn't take Chase's insult to heart. The glare misdirected at him, evoked sympathy rather than annoyance. But Chase was determined that Mayes would not leave and House knew without knowing that he had to. One wouldn't believe how much the grunt of pain and the following look of betrayal wounded him, when House tripped the boy with his cane, ending his last viable effort.

An uncovered outcropping of rock had skinned his knees and hands. The hair darkened with river water dripped down his face. A desperate flush to the otherwise pallid skin, matched the desperate, stubborn eyes as the most natural colour to the young man's complexion. This wounded, muddy, shivering, nearly naked mess was what Mayes had left behind and entrusted into House's care.

Greg was out of his depth. The most important thing he'd ever cared for was his rat. Most days he didn't really care for himself.

Yet even in under the scourge of his own shortcomings and in the contempt and anger in his subordinates eyes, Greg felt a part of him stand tall, honoured by the trust from someone he'd grown to respect in his own way.

He wanted this –this reason, this licence to care. He wished only, that it had come in a different way.

---H/C---

Warren Mayes had come to a realization that sealed his fate. They were following him. It was what he'd hoped. But they weren't just following the car he drove. Even when he lost them in the labyrinth of narrow streets of a small town, they turned up around the next corner. They were following him. Somehow they knew exactly where he was.

He stopped the car. He was just outside a town, a cliff to a river on his right, oncoming traffic to this left. Behind him two cars pulled off the road as well.

"Giving up?" Jordan's voice mocked as he and Antolovich stepped out of the nearest vehicle.

"You have an unfair advantage." He peered into the cars but the glare from the windshield and the tinted windows didn't allow him to see much. "She's in there, isn't she?" The nun, the woman that had been his pesky shadow for longer than he could remember.

"Where is he, Warren?" Antolovich asked.

"I was wondering how she got into a convent. She's not one to follow the rules and she has no redeeming qualities."

"You'd be surprised," Jordan remarked –a sly smiled on his face.

Mayes didn't think he would be. He'd sampled those carnal luxuries with her, at a time when the one with whom he was truly infatuated was too young to do such things. They had fit together seamlessly, known each others bodies with an almost factual knowledge. When they were spent she had clung but Mayes slipped from her grasp and ran; never far enough, because she always found him, and now she was finding him for hire.

"What is she?"

"She's a person, but like you, she has a mission," Antolovich explained.

Whatever she was, whatever he was, they were connected.

"And you've used her to try and complete your mission. I find Robert, she finds me, you find Robert."

"Well, we knew you wouldn't betray him twice. We needed another method. You three are bound together…Where is he, Warren?"

"I'm not going to tell you."

"You can't stay away from him." A knowing smile accompanied the Priest's words. "You crave your sin and sully each other. You can't live without him."

"But he can live without me."

"Are you sure?"

He wasn't, but Robert was a survivor.

"This world is very dangerous for a being such as him. What will he do without his guardian?" Antolovich gave a slight cock of his head to Jordan and immediately the Tenth Order's henchman pulled out his firearm and aimed at Warren.

Jordan smirked. "Don't tempt me."

---H/C---

"He could come back," Chase reassured himself, but he didn't sound convinced.

"Yeah, he might," House agreed softly. He didn't sound convinced either. Using his cane he retrieved the jacket Chase had hung over a branch. He draped it over Chase's shaking shoulders. With the sun beginning to set the early spring chill was creeping in.

Chase pulled the covering around him without comment and was also silent when House sat down next to him. His anger had ebbed away. He was too tired to hold onto it for very long so House had deemed it safe to approach.

"He'll lead them around, and then he'll lose them…and he'll come back."

House nodded slightly. It could have been mistaken for an idle rocking motion of his whole upper body, but he was really showing his support of Chase's scenario, despite how unlikely he felt it might be.

Chase hugged his knees tighter and kept his gaze on the moving river. House kept his sidelong gaze on Chase and, after some internal debate and a few false starts, laid his hand on the other man's nape. House let Chase buy in to his lie, and so did he.

Everybody lies. But more important than the falsehood was the reason why. In this moment House lied to protect Chase, because this meagre hope was better than none. And Chase would forgive him.

---H/C---

"Our plan doesn't have to end with his death, if he co-operates."

Warren was almost completely sure that was a lie.

"All we need from you is a location."

"You may as well just shoot me. I'm not going to beg for my life."

"Will you beg for his?" Father Antolovich slowly stepped forward but remained out of the line of fire. "You see, I can make his body do whatever I want with those metal braces on him. But you…you can make him believe what you want."

"You mean these?" Mayes held the adornments out in his hands before carelessly tossing them over the cliff. He watched Antolovich's face fall slightly. "And he doesn't trust me."

"No, he loves you. And that is even worse."

Mayes glared at the cleric. "You disgrace your title, Father," he hissed venomously.

"And you disgrace your brethren, demon."

A deafening pop suddenly filled the air, chasing away all sound for a moment after it passed. Mayes jerked and brought a hand to the bloody hole in his chest. Antolovich recovered from his startle and dropped his arms from the shielding posture they had taken.

The taste of blood filled his mouth and the smell filled his nose. His legs and feet unable to hold him any longer, he stumbled backward, looking for support on the low guard rail of the highway. His uncoordinated muscles had him missing the target and before he knew it, Warren was tumbling over the edge of the rail and down into the sharp ravine. His last image, taken by his dying eye, showed a being standing over Jordan's shoulder, its hand guiding his murder's on the weapon.

"Why did you do that?" He heard the faint echo of Antolovich's voice.

"It had to be done." The voice that started as Jordan's became the soft and melodious caress of an otherworldly being.

Finally, darkness swamped him, and cold arms stole this life from him.

---H/C---

A chill spread throughout Chase. His limbs lost feeling and his muscles relaxed, so much so that he nearly stopped breathing. With Chase leant against him and his arm around the shorter man, House felt the change.

"What is it?" he ventured, and wasn't surprised by the answer.

"…he's gone…"

**End Chapter 9**

This is taking longer than expected but I have some free time (away from my new toy ) so I'll be getting more of this edited and posted.

Sagga


	11. Identity Crisis

**A/N: **My apologies for neglecting this story. Sort of lost interest…

**Chapter 10 – Identity Crisis**

---H/C---

"So what have I missed?" Wilson asked casually as he strode into to diagnostics conference room. For a moment he paused at the eerie image that the two fellows at the table and the older man at the whiteboard brought up.

"Infection." Henderson stated.

"I thought she'd already been treated for her infection."

Foreman sighed –the absurdity of their idea not lost on him. "Another infection –one that didn't respond to the broad spectrum antibiotics she was given."

Wilson didn't know what to say in to the anticipatory silence. Three sets of eyes looked at him, gauging his response, his opinion of they're latest theory. "Uh-huh…" was all he ventured.

"It could be an infection attacking her brain," Foreman suggested as though the repetition made the theory true.

"Well, Angelica is a little more lucid," Wilson announced. He took a seat at the table. "She's now quite adamant that both she and Chase are supernatural beings."

Cameron shook her head. "Her delusion is become more real to her. The anti-psychotics aren't working."

"Then lets take her off of them," Henderson asserted facetiously, only to have the others actually consider the suggestion. "I was kidding."

"No you're right. We've been so eager to try alternative therapies but we refuse to fully embrace our theory. As long as we keep her on the anti-psychotics we'll never know for certain how the other treatments are affecting her," Cameron endorsed.

Henderson shook his head. "Take a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic off her medication? Cuddy will never approve this."

The other three looked at him. What they were suggesting was actually quite tame compared to the usual schemes that echoed in that room.

"You'd be surprised what Cuddy will let you do if you ask right," Foreman said conspiratorially.

---H/C---

Ten days, Mayes had told him. Ten days and Chase would be safe, or at least not in danger of being killed by deranged religious groups. Unfortunately they didn't have the equipment to stay in the bush for ten day, or even one night so that meant finding shelter, preferably one that would take a promise of payment rather than actual payment, since neither of them had any money. A trek up the bank, back to the highway was the first and most difficult order of business. It was painful for both of them. House took one of his few remaining Vicodin and offered one to Chase who accepted. What type of pain Chase was seeking relief from, House didn't know but he was too tired to speculate.

Fortunately getting a ride to a nearby district of Tel Aviv wasn't difficult. In what was mostly Mastema's doing, he picked out from the stream of passing cars the one that would help them. So, House waved and the driver did stop. And that wasn't where the oddities ended.

House was versed in many languages, his father travelling all over the world on different tours of duty and dragging him and his mother around with him saw to that. He knew for a fact that Chase spoke only English, Czech, and very basic Japanese and Mandarin. He should not have been able to converse fluently in Hebrew with the Israeli man. Chase did the same with the middle aged couple who owned a small, run down, low-rise apartment in Hatikva. In words House couldn't decipher, Chase somehow convinced the couple to give them a room.

House kept his comments until he locked the door of their new accommodations behind them.

"I didn't know you spoke Hebrew."

Chase didn't face him when he responded with, "Ani lo medaber Ivrit." ( I don't speak Hebrew.)

Their new lodgings were rustic, to put it nicely, and decrepit, to put it cruelly. It was one small room with, no bathroom, no kitchen, and the only furniture was a twin mattress sitting on a weak, wooden frame in the corner. The minimal movements of the two men in the small room kicked up dust into the stale, musty air.

Chase coughed as he dusted off the mattress. He didn't want to consider what he might be breathing in and what it might do to him. After working in PPTH's diagnostics department, and after being so close to so many terrible illnesses from some of the most innocuous sources, it was a constant battle not to become a hypochondriac.

He sat down with a silent sigh, too weary to put enough breath into it to make a sound. After several seconds, in which Chase stared morosely at the wall and House stared suspiciously at Chase, the older man braved the walk and the dusty furnishings to sit next to him.

House had nothing to say or, more precisely, too much and no words to put it in. Chase spoke first.

"You should find the American Embassy and get out of here."

The sound of a poorly running vehicle just outside nearly drowned out the soft suggestion and the equally faint response.

"We'll find the Australian Embassy first. They-"

"They can't help me. I've made the mistake of going to the authorities before." Chase shook his head and closed his eyes. "They have too many friends, too many connections. I wouldn't make it out of the country. But if you're not here they can't use you against me."

"But if I'm not here, then you're alone. And you're not in the best of shape."

There was no response to that. House grew impatient.

"Do you want to go through this alone? Say yes and I'll go –makes no difference to me either way. If you don't want me here," he leaned forward trying to catch Chase's eyes, "then look me in the eye and tell me."

Composure wrenching seconds passed as House awaited the answer. Chase's shoulder rose and fell with tremulous breaths until finally he turned and looked into his one remaining ally's eyes.

"I can't…I'm so tired."

House didn't doubt that. What he couldn't be sure of was to whom he was speaking, because Chase's eyes had gone that luminescent white again and he couldn't look away until Chase closed his eyes.

They both needed rest. They could deal with the rest of their problems after the sun rose. House removed his button-up shirt and spread it over the mattress at the end of the bed furthest from the door. He'd been wearing it for days and it smelt strongly of him, but it was either that or lay their heads on the dusty mattress. The rest of their bodies could manage but inhaling breath after breath of months, if not years, of dust build-up was not going to do either of them any good.

Without words or instructions the two men laid themselves down. Joints ached and muscles pained as they tried to relax on the thin padding. When they were at last settled they were on their sides, facing each other and close enough that their knees brushed.

"I guess it could be worse," House drawled. Chase blinked blearily back at him and waited for the rest of the thought. "I could be stuck in the same bed with Foreman."

Chase smiled sleepily and a few minutes later House was sure he was asleep. One last glance around assured House that they were alone, and he allowed his body its surrender.

---H/C---

Angelica would not have been aware of what was going on around her. She was already heavily medicated to mediate her diagnosed psychosis. To that already nauseating cocktail of medications they had added the anti-epileptics. So when two doctors came in and began speaking to her in slow simple words they didn't truly believe that she comprehended what they were saying.

"Well at least she looks pleased about it," Dr. Foreman noted while he wrote in her chart.

"You could have been telling her that the planet was about to implode and she'd still smile at you. It's the medications."

"Let's hope it's not because she's going to have to do without them for a while." They had left orders to have Angelica quickly weaned off the anti-psychotics. Whatever her response they hoped that it would be easier to decipher without the medicated cloud blocking the patient from her doctors.

Foreman replaced the file into the holder at the foot of the bed. With nothing else to say he tried to return a smile to the woman. He left after a minor success. Henderson followed a moment later.

Angelica's head lolled to the left, to the window where her companion sat, a comforting dark shadow under the warmth of a waning sun.

"This is better," she whispered. The phantom agreed.

---H/C---

They weren't alone when they woke. Chase woke first, and woke tired, though not to the extent he had been the night before. The sun was up and the dingy window that he and he doubted House even noticed was allowing bright sunlight to stream through, leaving a pool of light on the floor and washing out the dank room with a golden glow. It was almost enough to hide the layer of dust already in the room. But it wasn't the sunlight that had awoken him.

"Hi," Chase greeted before his eyes were completely open. He knew who was there. He could feel the presence in every fibre of his being. He didn't know how he didn't miss this feeling because now he felt he couldn't go for long without it.

'I though I'd look in on you.'

"You're always looking in –or sending something to look in. I wish you wouldn't."

'You weren't supposed to be able to detect them with corporeal senses.'

With his back to and brushing against House's side and his head pillowed on an arm he had to sit up carefully to make sure he didn't cause the other man to wake. The chill had continued to seep in as the night progressed and Chase had removed House's jacket that he was wearing to drape it over both of them. It had required some crafty positioning of his body next to House, since the blazer was only so big, but he didn't mind and House never complained. Chase realized that he liked the sleeping House, as much as funny House, and tender House. The jury was still out on 'I-know-what's-best-for-everyone' House.

"Well, I could feel them."

'We weren't the only ones sending…things to check up on you.'

"I know, and I'll talk to Azrael later." In the quiet Chase stared at the apparition. "Nice face."

'I can change it if you like.'

Chase smiled. "No. It's your face too, Azazel. I guess."

'Thank you.'

"I see you picked up sarcasm."

The man seated cross-legged on the floor next to the bed laughed. A few strands of dark blond hair fell onto his forehead as he tilted his head . 'I invented sarcasm.'

"Well meet one of your many disciples." Chase nodded back to House who was still fast asleep.

'We've met.'

The smile on Chase's face drained away.

'You don't trust me,' Azazel accused more than asked.

"I love you. I know you. And I know your…purpose. It's not one that's good for him."

'Neither is your purpose. In fact, we're one in the same.'

"I know." Robert swung his bare legs over edge of the bed to plant his cold feet on the colder floor. The wrap was still tied around him but it had ridden up to his waist during the night. It wasn't a concern. He'd never hidden anything for Azazel except what he thought he must. His body wasn't on that list.

"…I couldn't keep doing it. Don't you ever tire of watching the same mistakes over and over again?" Chase's voice had taken on an eerie hollowness, like the disinterested tone of a wise man.

'I grow bored, but those like your companions are always interesting –more so than you some of the time.' The endless eyes of Azazel slid to the form behind Mastema and then back. 'I suppose hell has burnt away any empathy or sympathy I might have had for them. But I still felt for you. Even as Robert Chase you were still Mastema.'

"I am still Robert Chase."

'I know…I know.'

"So you can feel for me when I'm one of them. But you can't feel for the rest of us?"

'I am your 'us'! They are…'

"They're people."

Robert searched the blackened eyes but they were steady and as unchanged as when he'd seen them last –many years, barely a blink in time ago.

Azazel saw too that Mastema had not really changed, even if he had a flesh and bone accessory in which to walk around in. He understood now why when Mastema ran from the tasks that were shredding the intricate but resilient being apart, why he didn't run to his brother. He chose to fall only half way, but he hadn't deserved to fall at all.

'I hate your job and what it does to you.'

Robert, Mastema smiled sadly.

'I hate that there is no one else who could do it. I hate that one day the summons will come and you'll be forced to go back. I hate that I'll let you. I hate them all.'

"I think I've already told you many times before that you hate too much."

Azazel leaned forward. 'Hate serves me well.' His smile was wane, tortured. 'But it doesn't serve you. Always waiting and hoping for them to overcome –a genuine desire for the good of…mankind,' he enunciated the last word harshly, 'or a selfish desire to alleviate your own suffering?'

"Why not both?"

'Because going both ways will tear you apart.'

His visitor and friend's point made it across loud and clear but his mind was still that of a man and he couldn't help the chuckle.

'What?'

"Going both ways…"

'Fuck, you really are one of them.'

"You say that now like it's not such a bad thing."

'You've always been a convincing orator. Your sense of humour sucks though.'

"Oh, humour –did you invent that too?" Robert deadpanned.

'I take credit for many things –swearing, deception –but I wash my hands of humour.' Robert smiled at him again. Azazel smiled back. 'I also take credit for eavesdropping.'

Robert gave him a glare and Azazel smiled harder. "You don't have to pretend to be asleep, House."

Behind him, bright blue eyes blinked open. "Sorry. I was enjoying listening to you talk to yourself."

Chase twisted to look at him. "I was talking to him," he said, and pointed to where Azazel sat.

House looked but didn't see anyone at first. A second or two passed without comment and then House startled as a being appeared, sitting exactly where Chase had indicated.

"House...?" Chase inquired. The older man was looking pale and his eyes were wide with barely constrained terror. "Azazel, stop it!"

Azazel laughed at the physician's reaction to him. 'I'm not doing anything.'

But House was still frozen, a terrible awe written on his face.

"Stop it!" Chase lunged for Azazel. They were both surprised when they collided having expected that one of them would pass right through the other.

'This isn't possible.'

"It bloody well is! Leave him alone!" Chase had Azazel by the collar of his plain, charcoal shirt, and seated with his weight on the spectre's waist. At his back he heard House suck in a pained breath. His hands fisted tighter. He pressed on Azazel's throat, though a lack of air wasn't going to hurt him in the least. "Leave him!"

'Do you love him? Do you love these cosmic abominations and infantile creations? All their weakness, and ignorance?'

"I share your distaste. But I see a gift that we lack."

'They can't save you. He can't save you.'

"I'm not looking for a saviour. I'm looking for perspective, understanding." His voice was calm on the surface. Underneath the fear for House made his pulse race.

'What makes you think they have it?'

"Because we don't!"

'You love him don't you?'

"No. I love you."

House gasped. His eyes closed. The tension that contracted his muscles and pulled his frame ended. He flopped back onto the mattress, easing the searing in is lungs, and for the recently-threatened life of him not understanding what had just happened.

Chase didn't turn around to check on him. He could hear the relief in House's breaths; he could almost smell the tension leave the room. He closed his eyes.

Azazel struck.

It only took a blink and all of a sudden Chase was the one pinned to the floor, chest to chest with Azazel.

'What surprises me…is that you're not lying. So…why don't you love him?'

"You don't understand love at all."

Azazel paused, reflecting for a moment. 'I know enough to love you.'

The weight and warmth vanished. So did the man over him. Chase took a few deep breaths and raised his head enough to see House doing the same to look at him.

"Friend of yours?"

"More like…" He dropped back to the floor, knocking his head a little, "…more like brother. Are you okay? What did he do to you?"

House shook his head, eyes to the ceiling. He didn't know how to describe the most complete sense of foreboding and pure menace he felt from that thing. It wasn't the being itself that he'd reacted to, like a bad allergy. It was everything he represented. House shivered involuntarily.

"What are you?"

"I'm human."

"Don't give me that! What the fuck are you? What the hell is a Mastema?" House sat up and glared at him.

Chase felt himself wilt a little under the look. "You already know. Why does it have to be said again?"

"Maybe I just want to hear you admit it."

Like a confession, Chase thought sourly. But what had he done wrong that he needed to confess. A pain tightened his chest and halted his breathing as more knowledge, more of what he'd locked away returned to him.

What didn't he have to confess?

"Mastema…" House prompted cruelly. He was a man of little patience and his nerves were raw and still humming with the assault they'd just taken.

"…was tired, and weak, and angry. So…I ran." Seated on the empty floor, his legs out before him and his head down in shame, he looked as small and pitiful as he felt. "I ran to the people who had caused it all because, you're all immune to what you do to each other. I needed that reprieve. I just couldn't do it anymore. Watching all the suffering and not being able to help. I wanted to reach out. I wanted to…guide them. But then I remembered…I did this to them. I brought the worst out and brought about their worst nightmares. Azrael welcomed them, Gabriel taught truth, and I hurt them." Chase raised his eyebrows and gave a weak shrug.

"Then what happened to Robert Chase?" House demanded acidly. He wasn't sure whether he believed or not but he was still sure of enough to be outraged at something hijacking the body of an innocent person.

Seeing the disgust, Chase scrambled over to the bed. "I am Robert Chase!"

"No, you're Mastema."

"Same thing!"

"Robert Chase was the son of Rowan Chase and whatever his mother's name was. You took that body."

"I saved that body! The baby wasn't going to survive."

"How would you know?"

This time Chase was the one who glared. He knew a lot of things suddenly that he didn't understand how or why he knew. But he didn't doubt any of it. And he couldn't explain a fraction of it.

"I just know!"

"Then what about the…soul that should have been in that child. Where did you stuff him?"

"I didn't do anything to him! He went to the same place other unborn souls go!"

The look he was being given told House not question the issue any further.

"I…saved that life. It was the best thing I've ever done. And then I forgot. I chose the life of a single human. I chose the experiences of his life, good and bad, over the experience of everyone." Robert sighed. "I wanted to live a simple life for a while."

"You could have picked better," House said after a minute of emptiness. "You got a pretty shitty deal."

"People have had much worse."

"Yeah. And that's sad but Robert Chase didn't know that. And it doesn't make his or anybody's pain less valid."

"I know. I'm so sorry." Robert reached out to touch House but an inch before he made contact, House pulled away and sat up.

"I'll find you some clothes." Painfully, he scooted off the bed. Gratefully, Chase didn't try to touch him again. House donned his jacket over his undershirt. "Stay here. Don't let anyone in." House gave the instructions without looking at the Chase and exited the apartment the same way. Chase sat there and watched him go, part of him hoping that House left him behind and didn't come back.

---H/C---

An unguarded clothing line provided House with free garments for Chase. No underwear so he had to go commando but that was the least of their problems. Money was next. A trip to the First International Bank of Israel managed to give them the equivalent of a few hundred US dollars. Getting anymore from Chase's Swiss account would take a few days but he'd been allowed a small advance after his Swiss banker vouched for him. House had not kept his rich-boy comment to himself when Chase reluctantly informed him of his Swiss account. Chase had explained the account was for the occasions when he knew he had to lie low, and the Swiss account allowed him access to the small stockpile of funds in many places.

The rest of the day was filled with mindless, dreary tasks, like getting new clothes for Chase, that didn't look like they'd been stolen from some person's laundry line. A black turtleneck, a pair of pants and a cheap pair of shoes was all he got. House bought a new shirt but was more concerned with his waning supply of Vicodin. He'd managed to eke out his supply thus far and could probably do the same for the next few days but he'd need a refill soon.

"Come on we need to make a phone call," House stated.

"To whom?"

"Wilson. I need more pills."

"Can this wait until tomorrow?" Chase couldn't help the looks he threw over his shoulder. He was more than paranoid that at any moment, Voorhees and friends would jump out and catch them. He knew that going to such a large, well known bank was a risk, but starvation and exposure was a bigger one so they'd had no choice but to chance it. He was certain that in a few hours, if not sooner, an ally of the Tenth Order's would be at the bank inquiring about some of the foreign visitors they had earlier.

"No, this can't wait!" A small mall provided cover and a public phone. Making the long distance call to the US was a challenge in itself but finally the line rang and House breathed in relief when the familiar voice picked up. "Me again," he greeted casually.

"God, House! Are you guys okay? Where are you?"

"I need a prescription."

"That's going to be difficult with you on the other side of the planet."

"We're not on the other side…" House trailed off as he realized that Chase wasn't near him. "Shit!"

"What is it?" Wilson's voice tightened in response to the panic he heard in his friend's.

"Chase. I can't…never mind. I found him." House glared at the young man who was seated on the armrest of a rickety bench near the entrance they had come through. Chase met House's eyes and gave him an annoyed look. House suppressed his smile of amusement. He couldn't reconcile what Chase said he was and what he seemed to be, as the man continued to act like the Chase House had always known.

"You have to stop scaring me like that."

"Gotta keep your heart in good shape. Look, there's a clinic nearby. I'll give you their number. You call them and tell them whatever you need to tell them to get me my pills."

"House…" Wilson drawled uncertainly.

He didn't need this. He had enough to deal with without adding Wilson's constant guilt-tripping. "I need my pills!" House looked over at Chase. "I also need a leash for my fellow." House quickly gave Wilson the information he needed and went to Chase who was currently talking to two men. They were both pretty young, around Chase's age but the constant grins on their faces put an icy feeling in House's stomach.

"Time to go!"

All three men were startled. "What are you doing?" Chase demanded as House took him by the wrist and forced him away.

"You can turn tricks on your own time."

"I wasn't turning a trick, you bloody bastard!"

"Then what were you discussing? The weather? The local sports team?"

"No, just the really important stuff, like where are you from and how long are you staying." Chase wrenched his arm free but didn't have the strength to keep his balance. He managed to stay upright thanks to the outer wall of the mall. "What the hell is wrong with you anyway?"

House stared at him. What the hell wasn't wrong? "We need to eat. You haven't eaten in a while. Might be carrying the quest for thinness a little too far."

"Fuck you."

"Did Mastema's infinite wisdom come up with that witty retort?" House limped off.

Chase quickly caught up. "No. Azazel likes to take credit for those." Chase walked on when House paused.

---H/C---

An entire week they spent sniping at and taking care of each other. At some times House was steps from force feeding Chase and at others Chase was physically keeping House from swallowing a whole bottle of his newly filled prescription. There had been a "mistake" at the pharmacy and House had been given he wrong ones, which he soon discovered when his leg pain and withdrawal symptoms began to show up. The pharmacy had been adamant that they had made no mistake but neither House nor Chase believed them. Finally, unable to take anymore, Chase had run to the pharmacy and forcefully made his way behind the counter to search their stock.

For nearly two hours he'd rifled through the shelves of pills and powders and creams looking for the Vicodin that was supposed to be there. The employees had been yelling at him all the while but as Chase had expected, they didn't call the police.

Hatikva was one of Tel Aviv's most notorious slums and it didn't receive its reputation because of the outstanding moral fibres of the businesses and residents. Eventually Chase had found his target and with a challenging and hostile glare at the employees and the patrons of the pharmacy he left with an unhealthy supply of the drug House needed and a few bottles of water, just because.

"They were probably selling the good pills on the street for a higher profit and selling the bad stuff to the few patients they actually have," Chase said more because he didn't know what to say. House had just taken the pills and was lying listless and glassy-eyed on the bed, his agony filling the room. "I've heard of people watering down insulin and other drugs before. I don't want to contemplate how many people might--"

"Shut up, please, would you?" House grumbled and immediately felt worse without the accented voice to annoy and keep his mind off the pain in his thigh.

The bed dipped with an added weight. House shifted his gaze away from the blurry ceiling to his most recent roommate. Strangely, Chase looked to be almost in as much pain as him.

"I'm sorry." What was Chase apologizing for? Chase didn't know; neither did House.

"You didn't do this," House stated simply because it was fact and not to ease the gloom in his companion's eyes, or so he told himself.

Chase trailed his eyes over the pained form, thinking thoughts too deep and alien to be expressed clearly.

"Not you too," House groaned. Chase's eyes drew up to his face. "Why do people always think I need to be saved?"

"Maybe because you're hurting yourself and seem content to do it until it finally destroys you."

"You've given this some thought."

"There's only you, me and your pain in this room, so yeah, it has crossed my mind."

"Fine. Keep your opinions to yourself. I don't need to be saved, and certainly not by you."

"What makes you think you don't deserve to be saved?"

"Just…shut up. Please…"

It took forty minutes for the painkiller to finally work its magic. Chase stayed at House's side (mostly in silence) until he saw the lines of strain ease from the older face. With the pain receding and House's walls returning to their usual fortitude Chase knew it was time to retreat, give House his space.

House rose to support his upper body on his elbow and took a moment to stare at Chase as he stood by the window. He looked depressed. House didn't know it but Chase's thoughts had been turning to someone at whom he was trying to be angry at.

After a few minutes of his staring going by unnoticed, and seeing the moisture glaze the dulled eyes House had his conclusion. He didn't have any words though.

"Hey, how you feeling?" Chase asked after a noticing with a quick glance that House was half-up.

"Better." Judging from the colour of the sunlight illuminating Chase House judged that it must be late evening. The hue of the light made the golden hair a warmer, more bronzed shade and with the strands hanging over his forehead and brushed just away from his eyes, Chase looked younger than the years that he was.

"A few more days and we're home-free," House stated.

Chase simply nodded.

"Well don't be so happy about it."

Chase forced a smirk of amusement but it didn't reach his eyes, because even after the immediate dangers passed he would never be the same.

"I am, of course, going to make your life hell once we get back to New Jersey," House threatened. Chase nodded but didn't seem concerned, or even to be listening. "I'll also garnish your wages to make up for the pain and mental anguish you've caused me."

"Yeah, sure…"

House sat up and shifted to rest on foot on the floor. "You don't plan on coming back do you?" There was no response this time. "Chase!"

"What?" That startled him out of his reverie.

"You're coming back to work after this is over," House commanded.

Chase shrugged. "I don't know." He watched the people move about outside for a bit more. "I don't have anything else, I guess."

"You still have your life, your job, and you have more information than when this mess started."

"I also don't have Warren. If you're trying to cheer me up, you're doing a crappy job."

"I don't do cheer."

"Explains why you're out of practice."

"What I do, do is information gathering."

"Information you simply lord over people to manipulate them."

"That's because so many of them seem so content to ignore it and continue with their paltry bliss. You're a prime example. You've finally been given information to explain everything and you're just ignoring it, pretending like you're the same person you were a week ago."

"I am the same person."

"Nobody's the same person they were a week ago, but most of us don't have a whole alternate life to pretend doesn't exist."

"Lucky for everybody else."

"So why aren't you embracing your newfound god-hood?"

Chase glared at House, for his wording and for his continuation of a topic that he did not want to discuss. "Because I don't want it, but I can't un-remember everything I know now."

"How much do you remember?"

Chase shook his head. "Not much, but more comes back each moment, and I don't want it."

"Then you're just going to have to suck it up."

"Thanks, your pep talk really did the trick," Chase sniped.

"I never said I wouldn't be there to help." House said it casually, eyes down on the pattern of unravelling stitches in the mattress. Chase didn't look over, knowing better than to put House on the spot at a time like this. He didn't think House was screwing with him, so he didn't feel the need to search his expression for subterfuge.

"Thanks."

---H/C---

He was walking in his dream again. He seemed to be doing a lot of that of late. When he was awake Chase mused that it was symbolised a journey but he wasn't awake and so he walked.

Each step was difficult, as though he were walking through water but there was nothing that he could see weighing him down.

He felt Angelica join him, matching his pace but staying silent. Others came joining him and they kept walking. The worlds around them changed –changed seasons, changed regions, changed times. The screaming faces remained the same, until they became familiar. They became the faces of people he knew, people he cared for. Yet when they screamed, their eyes melting from their head, and the flesh falling from their bones he only looked to the massive population of beings like Angelica that walked with him and smiled.

More than six billion people were to perish in their own personal hells, having turned against each other and themselves. Even the righteous and holy drowned in the swamping tide of malevolence.

A frail hand grasped at his leg. Chase stopped walking and looked down at the woman. He felt nothing for her as she begged for mercy for her and the baby suckling weakly at her breast.

"No," was his easy response.

The child in her arm bit down hard. The woman shrieked, ripping the child away from her. Eyes filled with tears and hate, she raised the infant above her head and brought it down to strike against the jagged ground.

His gasp filled the room and air filled his lungs. Panic had him trying to sit up but an arm around him kept him down. Intense words of reassurance from a deep voice broke through the haze left by his nightmare, his omen, and only after his quickly found resolution did he begin to relax and appreciate the hand under his shirt rest on his stomach and the thumb stroking across the skin.

"What is it?" House asked and felt a shiver slip through the body under his hand.

"Just…just another nightmare," Chase whispered back, eyes staring straight ahead at the ceiling. Another nightmare that he would ensure would not come true.

Beside him, House tried to push aside his frustration. His tenuous grasp of the situation wasn't enough to find a conclusion or a solution. All he could was provide a little comfort –as he had been more and more over these past days –and hope that they'd last the two more days they needed. He didn't know that Chase was trying to make sure they survived the next few days.

---H/C---

Doctor Cameron had finally tracked him down a patient's room. Or outside of it since the chaos within couldn't handle visitors at the moment. Whatever Cameron was about to tell him died in her throat as she caught site of Angelica Brown, once again caught up in the throws of her delusions.

"You have to let me go! I have to get out of here!"

With much difficulty Dr. Henderson and the nurses put the woman in restraints.

"No! Don't I'll stop! I'll be good!" Angelica bargained but the light in her eyes showed that she intended to do no such thing.

Henderson loaded a syringe with a mild sedative and administered it to the woman.

"You don't understand. He doesn't understannd…" she said sadly "He needs my help… Or you're all going to parish."

The tired nurses left the room with no regard for her words. Henderson had little more regard for Angelica than them. "I've had enough of this," he stated, his frustration with the situation evident in the lines of fatigue around his eyes. "She needs the anti-psychotics."

Wilson and Cameron let him walk away without a word.

"She was doing better with the antibiotics," Cameron stated.

The oncologist nodded in agreement but didn't speak.

Unsure about the older man's silence Dr. Cameron tentatively continued with what reason she had sought him out in the first place. "Agent Jerome provided for us and update of the investigation for Chase and House. Apparently Chase has a Swiss account so they're going to see if tries to access it from anywhere. They've also been in contact with some people in Israel but he couldn't tell us any more than that."

A nod was the only response.

"She may just be schizophrenic." Allison didn't know why Wilson was so open to the possibility that the patient had anything beyond what was already written in her file. Though at times even she was captivated by the clear eyes and uncanny insight the woman seemed to have once she was off her medications. As though the fractured mind and temporarily mended itself, Angelica would look at her, seeming to see into the core of her being. They had even conversed briefly a few times and the woman was truly insightful, so much so that sometimes it was as if she was psychic. She could practically hear House reminding her that just because the woman was crazy didn't mean the she wasn't perceptive.

"Probably." Wilson's response tripped Cameron out of her thoughts. Before she could regain her footing Wilson was walking away.

---H/C---

"Where the hell have you been?" House yelled as soon as Chase came in the only door to the miniscule apartment.

Chase didn't seem fazed by the outburst. He thrust some documents and a little folder at House and held them against the man's chest when he didn't move to take them. "Here, take these, go home."

"What--"

"It's a ticket to New York. Take it and go home. You can't stay here."

House stared down at Chase, those calculating azure eyes trying not to miss any of the information clearly expressed on face before him. He reached up. Chase followed the motion of the hands expecting them to take the documents. Instead, after hooking his cane to the crook of his elbow, House grasped Chase around his wrists.

Surprised, Chase tried to move back but couldn't, not with the vice around his wrists.

"I think you would have figured by now that I'm not an idiot. I know what you're trying to do."

"Then let me go and go home." Chase tried to pull back again but House's hands didn't budge. Bum leg or not, House was still quite strong. "You're not helping, I don't want you here, and you don't want to be here."

"I've been taking pages from your book, doing things I don't want to do." Chase didn't respond except for his eyes narrowing and his struggle to free himself renewing. "This is joke right? Tell me you didn't spend what little money we had left on a plane ticket!"

"Go to the embassy tell them you lost your passport, they'll help you and then you can get you out of here."

"I'm not going anywhere!" House's hands squeezed tighter and Chase clenched his jaw in both frustration and discomfort as the long fingers dug into his flesh.

"Just fucking go, House! I'm sick of sharing the bed with you, and I'm sick of sharing this room with you! I'm just sick of you! I don't know how I ever liked you, but I've been cured of it. So do us both a favour and just fuck off!"

Chase held House's eyes, knowing that if House saw any uncertainty he'd pounce on it. But just because it couldn't be seen didn't mean that House didn't know it was there. He was ready to begin round two, many witty and unbeatable arguments already coming to mind but he stopped, or was stopped. Cold fear gripped his insides and stole his breath. A chill travelled down his spine and the room, formerly lit with early afternoon sun, was now filled with shadows. From the corner of his blurring vision the shadows seemed to shift and move to crowd around him. The stray thought in his mind that he had rejected early on, was now back with a vengeance that deafened him and all his other thoughts.

Take it.

Go home.

Leave him.

House closed his eyes trying to lock out the thoughts. It didn't work. And when he opened his eyes, his hands no longer held Chase's wrist. They had the flight voucher and itinerary and his feet where carrying him to the door. As he stepped out, House turned back, fighting with himself and the impossibly strong urges for one last look back.

The room was filled with living shadows, their patterns shifting and merging on the floor and on the walls. Chase was still standing there, head hung and back to the door. Without warning the door swung on its squeaking hinges and slammed closed. One last shadow seemed to hurtle at House and it forced him to practically run down the half flight of stairs to the building's exit and out into the warm sun.

Later, standing outside the gated complex of the United States Embassy, House would be dreaming of soft white light. A guard behind the main gate would ask him if he needed help and when House met the soldier's eyes to respond he'd recall familiar blue-green turn to soft, radiant white. The anger would mount, the thoughts of flight would turn to fight, and the implanted suggestions would evaporate.

---H/C---

He needed the money. That was all it came down to. It was probably the same for everybody who chose to do this.

The plane ticket had used all but a few dollars of they money he had left from the bank. The transfer from his Swiss account was hitting some snags and he could only get a little out every few days. His next withdrawal wouldn't be available until Monday if he was lucky, and it was only Thursday. The landlady was breathing down his neck about the rent he owed and he knew she was just a breath away from kicking him out. But for now he still had a room, and it would provide him with what he needed to make it through the weekend: a place to do business.

It was the same two men he'd met at the small mall about a week ago. The same two men House had forcibly dragged him away from and then accused him of propositioning. He really hadn't been that time, but when he'd gone out to try and buy some food earlier, only to find that he couldn't afford anything, running into those two again seemed like some cruel poetic justice. And like the last time, they propositioned him. But unlike the last time, Chase accepted.

They climbed the stairs behind him, murmuring to each other in Hebrew and laughing too. At his door Chase fumbled for the key to the flat. Just as he retrieved it, the two men became impatient and Chase found himself pinned against the door. Rough lips pressed against his neck and a tight grip in his hair angled his head back for better access.

Another set of hands began their own exploration; one slipping under his shirt and the other down the front of his pants, the unwelcome but inescapable caresses making him nauseous.

Chase's eyes fell on a half open door just down the corridor. It was the single washroom afforded to this floor of the complex, and Chase felt the urge to dash there and lock himself in.

Later, he promised himself.

The man with his face buried in Chase's neck guided his hand and the key to the lock on the door, getting it opened and letting the three of them in. Chase reached for the awkwardly positioned light switch but the two men didn't let him move far enough to get it where it was located near the hinge of the door.

As though it sensed his need for light, the bulb came on, shining its weak yellow light. But the light-bulb was as inanimate as it ever had been. The true culprit was standing next to the light switch, menace and infuriation written in every line of his body.

"House?" Chase sounded both happy and dismayed to see him.

The two strangers pulled back a little but didn't let go of the body they had been promised a ride on.

"What are—"

A blink of fair eyes and a flash of metal had a small gun trained on the nearest of the two strangers. He froze, staring down the barrel of the firearm and his friend began looking for an opening in which to attack.

"Christ, House! Put the gun down!" Chase began towards House, thinking that House had misunderstood the situation.

House hadn't misunderstood. He'd miscalculated.

The aim of the gun changed, leaving the Israeli man and pointing square at the Australian.

"…H…House?"

"You two, out!" The deep and forceful command and the nod of his head to the exit crossed the language barrier and the two men retreated. He should have known that the two friends would defend each other, but they wouldn't risk injury for a stranger.

House, what are you doing here? Why aren't you at the airport? Why do you have a gun on me? All very good questions, none of which Chase could manage to articulate with the stare of the gun and the more fearsome stare of his employer both on him.

Chase barely realized what happened before he found himself pressed against the wall, the light switch digging into his back and House's left hand gripping the front of his shirt. With his right hand holding the gun, his left also held his cane, the hard length of which was bearing down on his chest. But those discomforts were minor compared to the sight of a gun so close to him that his eyes couldn't even bring it into proper focus.

The cold metal brushed a trail across his cheek until the tip pressed into his temple.

"I don't care if you're trying to save the entire world…don't ever pull one of those…manipulation tricks on me again."

Mouth parted and panic-filled eyes locked onto the ones that had held his since the gun moved out of his sight, Chase nodded, though it appeared more like a shiver.

Just scare him, that's all House had originally intended to do when he decided to return. The gun's purpose was protection for both of them. It was a purpose fulfilled by getting rid of those two men, but now, with Chase against him, eyes seeing only him and his breathes coming in short, quick puffs, House didn't want to let him go, not until the other feeling in him was resolved.

The sight and sounds of those men touching Chase, kissing his him, it had set his anger into rage. How dare those men touch Chase? How dare Chase allow them to? And House himself, how dare he feel jealous?

Before he could think through what he was doing, House found a way to solve the problem. He brought his lips to Chase and pushed his tongue between the already parted lips, staking his own claim and sealing his resolve.

Chase, for his part, didn't do anything. The metal tip of the gun was still at his temple, the cold touch warming with each passing second that it remained there.

House ended the kiss and hobbled back a step. He yanked Chase forward and flung him towards the bed. Chase stumbled into it but would have kept his balance if House had not pushed him down on to it.

"House, stop it!" Chase yelled, feeling out of sorts and not sure how to return things to normal. The hard press of what Chase correctly assumed was the gun into his upper back ended his struggles.

"Is this what you wanted?"

The question was followed by the flutter of paper. Israeli banknotes fell around him, the images of face and places he didn't know filling his vision. Twenty, fifty, one hundred New Israeli Sheqel bills fell, all together several times what the two strangers had agreed to pay him.

"You were going to sell yourself to them right? Well now I'm a paying customer too."

With a rough hand House pulled Chase's shirt off and his pants down to his knees. Chase struggled against him but the press of the cool metal took most of the fight away from him.

House laid himself over the smaller man, wishing he could feel the naked skin on him. He wasn't willing to give up the power though. With the gun now in his left hand still pressed against the side of Chase's face, he busied his right hand between the blond's legs. House's remarkable skill with masturbation made the flaccid organ completely stiff quite quickly.

He was shaking, panting, a wreck with the sensation and House took it all in. House watched the flushed face and the tightly shut eyes. He felt and heard every change in his touch illicit a different response. He played the young man's body like he played with his mind, twisted him to do as he desired, manipulated and took retribution. And then one sound brought it all to an end.

It was a sob, a gasp, a breath all in one. It broke through the possessive lust and anger. There was pain in that sound, pain he realized he didn't mean to cause until he actually discovered it.

House's hand stopped. The firearm dropped to the floor with a heavy clatter.

The sounds outside stopped, as though everyone was waiting.

"Chase…Robert…"

The blue-green eyes opened and met his. There was so much swirling in there that House doubted Chase could decipher it all. House faced a dilemma, one not entirely of his own making but completely in his control. If he continued with his power play he could probably bring Chase to the most devastating orgasm of his life. But he couldn't. Now matter how good his body would feel, Chase would never trust him again. House hoped that he hadn't gone too far already.

He brushed his thumb against the cheek where the metal of the gun had been pressing before. The warm erased the chill.

House began again his strokes on Chase's member, but a flash of motion had Chase's trembling hand over his, halting him.

"I…I didn't…want them…" Chase confessed shakily, though House knew that already. "I needed…I needed the money."

"I have that. So now…what do you need?"

From the look in Chase's eyes House knew the young man didn't know what the answer was, probably wasn't sure what House meant by the question. House made a suggestion. He stroked up the length of the hot flesh in his hand. The resistance of Chase's hand made the motion slow but though he could have stopped it, he didn't.

House moved his lips to the shell of a delicate ear and breathed out, "What do you want Robert?"

A series of short strokes over the tip pulled a moan out.

House thrust his groin against Chase's hip, his surprisingly aching cock demanding attention. While waiting for Chase to return, he'd taken enough Vicodin to numb him from head to toe for a day, so House was surprised he was hard at all. But he was so he went with it. His lips descended on Chase's neck replacing the scent left by the two Israeli men. His right hand continued to work Chase's arousal, despite the half-hearted restraint the younger man's hand was making.

The resistance became full-fledged when House tried to kiss him. Chase's head twisted to the side.

"Stop." Chase didn't make it a request and went further by slipping out from under the other man. He put space between them, pulled his pants and underwear up from around his knees, but didn't reach for the rest of his clothing where they lay on the floor.

House shifted to his side and looked expectantly at Chase.

"What are we doing?"

"You're sitting nearly naked on a crappy bed. I'm lying clothed on—"

"House…"

House looked away and sighed. "I thought what we were doing was pretty obvious."

"Then why?"

"Because I want to." House turned his gaze to Chase's erection. "And because you want to."

Chase's gaze was steady and contemplative. His breathing was deep but the pace was normal, the storm of his arousal having dimmed under the onslaught of thought.

"So…it's not just…revenge," he ventured.

"You must think I'm a real fucking bastard that I'd use sex to hurt you."

"Better people have done worse," Chase countered, supremely aware that House hadn't given him an answer.

"I'll bet they have." Neither questioned how Chase knew what other people did. Chase knew he knew, and House knew that people sucked. "But who says they're better?"

"Popular opinion?"

House brought his right leg across his left, turning onto his back so that he could talk (since it appeared he must) without needing a chiropractor later. Some small objects in his pant pocket shifted and clinked together. The sound was soft, muffled by the fabric around it but Chase's ears picked it up and tuned out whatever House had begun to say.

Eyes narrowed on the pocket Chase climbed over House, pushed him down to the bed with one hand and reached into the pocket with the other.

What he found confounded him at first. Bullets, four of them, and at least one more still in the pants.

"The gun...it wasn't loaded?"

House smiled innocently for a moment before speaking sincerely. "They weren't going to make me shoot them. I wasn't going to shoot you." He slipped a hand to the back of Chase's neck and pulled his angry face closer. "And I wasn't going to rape you."

Chase's jaw remained clenched and his eyes remained angry for several seconds. "I won't manipulate you like that again. And you, don't ever pull a gun on me ever again, loaded or not."

"Deal. So, negotiations concluded. Everything settled to princess's satisfaction. Can we fuck now?"

"My God, you're romantic."

---H/C---

**End Chapter 10 **


	12. Two Halves, Whole

**Chapter 11 – Two Halves, Whole**

It was strange to walk next to a dead man, even in a dream. He didn't turn to look, even here afraid that the truth would replace the familiar comfort to his left. To his right was another presence. He refused to look there as well. He wasn't sure how –yet as unusual as the feeling was, it wasn't unfamiliar. Were there other dreams and other times that felt he wasn't alone, even when by all logical accounts, he was? In this instance, in this dream, that presence was clearer.

They were standing, moving through the world without moving their feet. As the scenery changed around them, people Chase recognized and cared for came into view. They blew by him, some ignored him, another slapped him, most just didn't seem to recognize or notice him at all.

A strong, warm hand slipped into his. Chase returned the pressure perhaps a few folds greater. Still, he refused to look over, even when it was all he wanted to do.

"Warren…"

Somewhere a tear slipped from his eye.

It smelt like early summer in New Jersey. He remembered the smell of early summer in Australia and didn't find himself missing it as much as he had the year before. Summer in New Jersey, in Princeton, on the University campus, was quiet. He'd always enjoyed the summer months even if there were smog warnings. Today though, there was only clear blue skies, green grass, black attire, and brown dirt.

"We are gathered here today to celebrate me."

With his free hand Chase tugged at the collar of his dress shirt. It was too tight, too hot. Why do people always have to wear black at funerals, even in the summer when they were only risking that somebody else would die of heat stroke and then they'd have to go to another funeral?

"I don't want any touching stories. I want smut. The 'Sexcapades of Greg House, Doctor Extraordinaire'." The gathering of people chuckled in nostalgic humour at his words.

"My boy was a charmer when he wanted to be," Mrs. House said with a fond smile at the tall pale man that was her son. Dressed in a snappy suit that House would only be caught dead in, the diagnostician smiled at those gathered at his funeral.

"I had good life," House said and murmurs of agreement came forth. "Had great friends, great adventures, great sex…" He leered in Chase's direction but all eyes remained on House, even as they chuckled.

"It's a shame you died," Cuddy said, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"I hope it was worth it," Cameron added.

Chase fought his way through the crowd his left hand still firmly gripping Warren's though he felt Warren's hold loosening. "Wait, how? How did he die? What happened?"

The crowd regrouped, shuffling closer and tighter around him. Warren had let go completely now –only Robert's desperate hand still connected them. "Warren!" His attention turned back. The funeral was forgotten save for the sombre, blank attendees that seemed bent on separating Chase from his lifelong protector. They pressed into his arm twisting and bending it until the pain became almost unbearable. His grasp only seemed to tighten still, but Warren's fingers slipped through his own and the smiling peaceful face was swallowed by the crowd.

"No! Warren!" His scream rocked the dreamscape, tilting it momentarily to a scene of death. Warren stumbled back, a hand going to his chest before he toppled over a feeble barrier and into a fantastically deep ravine. An intense brightness assaulted him, turning him away eventually but not before he saw something wrap its arms around and cradle the dying man.

"If this is heaven, it's no wonder you left. Talk about boring."

"House!" Chase exclaimed turning around. "You're okay, you're…you're walking…"

"Funny, the things you can do once freed of your corporeal form," House leaned close to say as he walked by, free of his limp.

Chase was still wide-eyed. "How did you end up here?"

"I'm not entirely sure myself. I figured I'd be making acquaintance with Satan by now."

Chase shook his head. "I mean how did you die?"

House became serious and turned to face him directly. The empty expanse between them vanished and they were nearly chest to chest, House looking down and Chase looking up.

"I died the same way everyone who stands with you does."

Chase didn't understand but before he could demand some clarification their environment filled with the feeling of shock and fear. An expression of agony appeared on House's face. Chase tried to reach out for him but his limbs wouldn't move at their regular rate. It was as though he was moving underwater, his limbs being held back by a persistent force. He couldn't even reach out to help when the bruises and cuts spontaneously formed.

The striking blue eyes dulled and became pale grey. The shadowed jaw began to hang and the bones in his face became prominent as his body wasted away.

Finally his arms moved and for a moment he held the dying man. Then suddenly Chase was alone with only the bright behind him and the deep dark in front of him.

"Chase! Robert, wake up!"

"What…where…"

"Same place we were when we went to sleep," House said plainly but without heat.

They were still lying on the shabby bed, still naked. House had Chase by the upper arms, holding him against the bed. When the nightmare had begun House had been annoyed at first, having been woken from his first peaceful slumber in what seemed like months. His annoyance had turned reluctantly to concern when he realised that Chase was truly in distress and wasn't able to wake from it. Even calling his name, and touching him it took several minutes before the younger man's eyes opened.

"It's morning," Chase noted, his voice weak.

"Barely." House let the strange observation go. Clearly Chase was still recovering from his dream and was grasping at the obvious to find him stable purchase in the real world.

When House let go of his arms Chase shivered. He followed House as he laid himself back down on the bed so that he was nearly atop the taller man. House looked at him quizzically but didn't venture a question.

Chase ventured one. "Do you think dreams can come true?"

"No. I think we have a dream and then when things happen we compare them in hindsight and overemphasize the similarities even when they're out numbered by the differences."

"Oh." The explanation was so very House.

"Why? Had another prophetic dream?"

Chase shivered and pulled away. "I hope not." He wiped away the tear tracks though the despair remained. He knew already that the dream did reflect a twisted possibility of the future. He could accept that House was right about prophetic dreams –the differences being greater than the similarities –but what similarities there might be scared him. And let's not forget the increasingly foreboding feeling that made his nerves hum in a way much different than the events of the night before.

"Do you know what day it is today?"

He only asked for the distraction. Something to take his mind away from his dream and Warren; away from the guilt and shame he felt for having had sex with House only hours ago. He loved Warren and sometimes only tolerated House, and he'd jumped into bed with the man at the first chance.

"Good Friday," House answered easily. Chase briefly forgot what his question had been. At the somewhat surprised look Chase gave him over his shoulder once he remembered, House continued. "My mother is a church goer. Her faith just didn't rub off the right way on me."

Chase nodded in acceptance and understanding, and looked away mumbling. "It's going to be a bad day."

"What makes you so sure? Your dream?"

"That and…"

House moved to sit on the side of the bed next to Chase.

"And what?"

"Just a bad feeling," Chase intoned sadly as he turned his gaze to House and shamefully wished for Warren. For days he'd been numb, kept his grief very private and tempered with the thought that Warren wasn't lost to him forever. He'd been as strong as Warren had always told him he was. He'd turned somewhat to the old life he'd forgotten and considered that perhaps there were things Mastema could do that Chase could not. But time had worn on, eroding his hope as no understanding and no hope for his best friend was found. So he'd found comfort to ameliorate the grief, and dove in with spectacularly carnal fashion.

For three seconds House didn't breathe. Jaw slack and lips parted he could only watch as Chase came closer, only feel as a hand slid across his shoulder to the back of his neck, and all he could do was close his eyes when the soft lips finally touched his own.

The kiss remained simple, an expression of something that wasn't quite clear –perhaps an apology.

House's arm slipped around the slender waist, bringing them closer and making the kiss deeper. As Chase gave in he opened up his senses to the experience not wanting to miss a thing, fearing that their time together was limited. Unfortunately there were senses he hadn't expected and was not equipped to control, and the visions flooded the vivid blackness before his eyes.

"You said before that if I could look you in the eye and tell you to leave, you would," Chase mumbled through the kiss as the images played out. He wasn't sure whether House hadn't heard, or had just ignored him but he had to make sure his request got through. Moving his hands to either side of House's face he gave one last press of his lips and then pulled away. When House's eyes were open and focussed unwaveringly on him, Chase spoke.

"Leave."

"…No."

"But you said…"

"I lied." House pulled away and began looking for his clothing.

Dumbstruck, though he really shouldn't have been, Chase sat there.

"Had another vision did you?" House asked while he leaned forward to retrieve his shirt. He already knew the answer.

"They're coming."

"Then it's breakfast, and then it's time to go."

A shirt colliding with his face delayed his next words. "To where?"

"Away from here. Come on."

---H/C---

It was small and humid the room rumoured to be their target's accommodations for the past several days. There was only one bed, an observation Clayton was quick to point out for the sole purpose of angering his homophobic, Christian counterparts.

"I guess Mastema is gay. Although Warren and Robert being so close was a pretty good giveaway."

"Shut up," Antolovich muttered as he walked further into the room. Jordan was already sifting through the few remains: a wrapper or container here and there, some articles of clothing, two tooth brushes and cheap toothpaste, a bar of soap, used condom, and a bullet.

"Everything you need for a good time," Jordan said with a smirk as he picked up the condom wrapper. "If it makes you feel any better there's only one," he said to Antolovich.

"Have you found anything useful?" The hard edge to the Priest's voice doused the humour Jordan had found and ended his teasing.

"The bed's still warm," Jordan announced. He stood and dusted himself off, taking his time and letting Father Antolovich's mind wander where it liked. "They can't be far."

---H/C---

Breakfast had been and unappetizing but necessary delay, made worse by a brief but painful round of stigmata. House had grown impatient with this roommates fussiness. Chase had momentarily distracted House with a kiss and what may have turned into a quick little romp. All plans had been dashed when the flowery scent pricked their nose and the painful marks roared back into existence. House had held him, and did what little he could to give comfort until the episode abated.

Chase had pulled through, found a place free of pain and the marks had vanished. After that they wasted no time. Breakfast was abandoned. They needed to cover as much ground as possible, Chase knowing that the stigmata would not leave him for long.

They were making good progress, House thought. Keeping to alleys and quiet roads, the distance between them and their little room in Hatikva grew larger. The pain in House's leg also grew proportionally and his Vicodin intake followed. He could practically feel Chase's disdain –or displeasure, or worry, or perhaps all three –each time he took another pill. Thankfully his comments weren't voiced.

"Wait!" Chase grabbed him by his shirt and pulled House back into the alley just as he was about to step out onto the sidewalk.

"What?" House hissed.

"One…two…three…four…"

A familiar sedan sped by.

Chase stopped counting. House started breathing. "That was too close."

"They're getting closer." Chase said, voice even and almost resigned.

"Then we just have to move faster." More cautiously this time, House peaked around the corner of the building, looking for anyone suspicious or familiar. He didn't see anything familiar. On his next inhalation, he smelt something familiar. A soft, sweet, flowery scent, laced with the unmistakeable odour of blood.

House turned slowly around, willing what he already knew, not to be true.

Narrow rivulets of blood streaked the already paling face. Just below Chase's upheld hands angry-looking wounds pierced clean through his wrists. His legs weakened as the weight of his body on the injuries in his feet sent waves of discomfort through his limbs. His shoulders drew hunched and his face pinched in pain.

"I don't think I can go any farther."

---H/C---

Holding on was what they were reduced to. In the dank narrow alley between two non-descript buildings on the edge of Tel Aviv's most notorious slum, Greg and Robert were huddled together. The crisp spring air wasn't so bad, though only rarely would a fresh breeze reach them where they were tucked against cement wall of one of the short buildings. An old wooden dumpster at the other end of the alley would tinge many of the few breezes they would receive with rotting refuse, briefly exchanging the scent in House's nose from the flowers and blood one he couldn't seem to get used to. No matter how many times he inhaled, the scent never seemed to lessen. The only option for relief from the odour would be to move away. House didn't see it as an option at all.

He could faintly hear what he thought was the search for them by the God-fearing and Satan-worshipping goons around them. A shuffle of feet past the entrance of the alley, a shouted command in the distance, and sooner or later they'd be caught.

"Hang in there," House tilted his head forward to whisper to Chase. The words were strange coming from his lips but they were honest, even if trite and hollow.

Seated between the other man's leg, with his back resting against House's front, Chase didn't respond. He'd been unresponsive for at least thirty minutes, only a few unintelligible words slipping from his lips every so often. Mostly he just sat there and shivered, and bled. The four sets of wounds were back: head, wrists, back and feet. The prior episodes were bad on their own, but somehow this one was more intense.

Where before Chase had been granted moments of lucidity mingled with moments of delirium, he'd found relief from the searing aches in the latter. This time there was none to be found anywhere. Even when his mind seemed to travel far from the humanly realm, the humanly pain went with him. His only relief was found upon his return to the Tel Aviv alley where warm arms and a warm body did its best to keep the chill away and a low voice spoke to him.

Each slowly passing moment left him different than the one before it. It was as though his life, his memory and his mind was full of missing pieces, but as the other knowledge, the one dormant for so long, became more prominent, the empty blanks were filled in and it was like living from a different reality. It was like riding a two-wheeler for the first time, or finding the right disease in a sea of possible diagnoses. It was a sustained excitement and awe, a rush that lasted beyond a minute. And it was the scariest thing Robert had even encountered, because it was turning his world upside down.

So it was natural that he'd fight against it.

And it was natural for fights to end in bloodshed.

"Chase?" The change in his breathing pattern from the long and shaky breaths, to short hitched one put House on guard. "Robert? Damn it, say something. What's wrong…besides the obvious," House couldn't help but add.

Chase's head was resting on his right shoulder facing away from him. House shifted to free his left hand and turn Chase's face to him. Tracks of wet and dry blood striped the pale face and matted the once bright hair. When, after several long seconds of waiting for any type of response, Chase's eyes opened the once bright hair didn't hold a candle next to the unearthly luminosity newly revealed. His sclera was the brightest, glowing white so bright that House's eyes stung to look at it. But there was also blue and green, shift and swirling like opposing currents in a mesmerizing dance.

"Eyes you can truly become lost in, no?"

House tore his eyes away and looked to the woman who had spoken. "Who are you?" He noticed that the surroundings had changed. "And where are we?" He was still seated on the flat ground, Chase was still in his arms, and the fragrant ooze of blood was still slowly soaking their clothing. The only explanation for the sudden change from an Israeli alley to a never ending room that was both bright and dark at once was that this wasn't real.

"Oh, it's real," The woman spoke again. "As real as angels and demons, and hell and death, Mohammed and Buhdda, or whatever you choose."

House tried to process her words while taking in her clothing. She was wearing a hospital smock, and if he wasn't mistaken there was the familiar, burgundy stamp of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching hospital near the bottom edge.

"You must be Angelica." He recalled Wilson mentioning a mental patient he thought might be connected to what was happening to Chase.

"You must be Gregory. He must be Mastema."

House tensed at the name. He turned his gaze back down to Chase and found that he'd at some point acquired another charge, and identical twin to Chase actually, only this one was weightless, a translucent shadow with mirrored pain.

"There are two of them?"

"No, only one." The woman knelt next to them. "But two halves of a whole."

House was tired; of riddles, of strangers and stranger places, of watching suffering. There was only one thing he needed to know. "How the hell do we end this?"

"We can't. It's up to him," she responded looking at both the men in House's arms. House's embrace was only around the one Chase on the right but the other Chase didn't mind. While his form rested on top of House, where they overlapped he rested within Chase, merged together into one form.

Angelica brushed the back of her fingers against the translucent Chase and sighed forlornly. She took one hand of each of the twin beings and brought them together. Both Angelica and House watched, one with hope, the other with amazement as the tense and shivering hands became one. The hand relaxed. When the wrists touched the wounds spontaneously healed, the blood vaporizing to leave no stain, the red, healthy internal muscles and pale tendons all reattached and the lesion closed as the skin and tissues grew to fill the gap.

House was too stunned to even ask how it was possible. He brushed his fingers over the once red and damaged skin. There was no unusual warmth, no bump or bruise, no scar, perfect healing.

"The only thing that will save him is the last thing he'd ever do."

Angelica began to fade and their surroundings slowly started to morph away from its previous vibrancy. The pair of identical hands fell apart, the wounds reforming.

Something warm and wet began pouring in disturbing amounts down House right hand and onto his right leg.

"Stigmata are not punishment. They are questions, warnings, but mostly, they are necessary." The fading woman turned to the left and looked upwards. Then she was gone.

The warm wetness continued to seep and given where his hand and leg were positioned, it didn't take long to determine the source of the new blood.

"Oh…shit!" House pulled the hand away from Chase's side and confirmed visually that the slick liquid was blood. Its source was a new wound, the last mark of stigmata –the killing blow.

Five wounds all to which were attributed the death of Christ. Whether House believed the bible or not, he believed medical science. If this latest wound really did mimic being lanced in the side, then no man, son of God or not, would survive long without medical attention.

Liver, bowel, depending on how deep and the angle, maybe diaphragm or kidney –severe damage to each and minor damage to some were death sentences on their own. Together they brought the end faster.

House pressed two fingers to Chase's neck looking for the carotid pulse. He felt his own pick up as Chase's slowed down.

"No, no, no. Don't you die!"

House pulled Chase closer and clamped his hand tightly over the seeping injury. The pressure pulled a hiss of pain from the pallid lips.

"Chase…Robert…" Words failed him. And actions…well he had none to try. The helplessness rose through him and an all encompassing sense of failure washed over.

"Warren…" The weak call of a name, even if not his, brought silly hope that perhaps Chase would be okay. The hope was dashed away, as silly things often are, when the ghostly lips became blood red and the fragrant liquid dribbled out.

"H…H-help...help me! Somebody help!" The faltering cry became infused with desperation and House's yell carried far, to the ears of the only people he wished not to have heard.

"Get him away."

House glanced to the left and saw the lower half of the people he and Chase had been trying to escape. Two sets of feet began towards them, intent on following the order they had been issued. House turned away from them and tucked his face against Chase's ashen skin. He thought he felt Chase turn towards him as well, but the last moment of peace was torn apart as the two men were torn from each other.

"Chase!" House struggled against the goons that were dragging him away. A foot connected with his midsection and House collapsed, his fight leaving and his body giving up. And that was the key, wasn't it. House realised and his fight renewed with such vivacity that the men holding him lost their grip and House was quickly back at Chase's side.

Hands at either side of the bloody face House spoke to him practically lip to lip. "Chase, listen. You have to give up." Hands began grabbing him, trying to separate them once again. He heard the voice of Antolovich issuing orders and setting plans. He heard the curses of the men trying to get him away. Mostly he heard Chase's laboured breathing and the pain each fragile breath held. "Stop fighting it! Let go! Let go of this life, whatever is holding you here! Let it go!"

House was yanked away. Chase was bundled up and carefully carried to a waiting vehicle.

"What should we do with him?" Jordan asked.

Anotlovich spared a long glance at the sullied man, his stark eyes still glued on the car where his companion had been taken.

"Put him out of his misery. Make it look like a mugging. It happens to tourists all the time when they wander to a bad part of town." Antolovich didn't bat an eye, as if ordering the death of another was commonplace for a priest.

House didn't notice, didn't hear. Even as they dragged him in the opposite direction and the threat of malice seeped from every eye, every breath and every clenched fist of his captors. His eyes still saw only the glowing eyes as they faded and heard only his words. Words he'd never suggested to even his most ill patients when facing death.

But usually giving up didn't make one stronger.

---H/C---

"Sometimes we look too hard and miss it…the way home…"

---H/C---

The hour long drive back to Jerusalem seemed to go by in a blink. The only memorable moments were the re-adornment of a new set of two bracelets and a choker like those Warren had painstakingly removed not long before he died. The touch of them on his clammy and bloody skin made him shiver but between the tremors of pain and his ever weakening body the new discomfort went barely noticed.

The small, secret chapel built into the rock beneath the Holy Sepulchre was decorated with candles in a fashion similar to the last time Chase had been down there. He was laid before the stone alter that fronted a barren wall. On the ground were already drawn numerous symbols meant to contain and control whatever spirits or demons came forth. It was bargaining time and the instant their blessed vessel of suffering finally succumb, they would have a chance to negotiate, to beg for mercy, or beg for assistance.

But there was no telling which side would rise first to snatch away the splendid spirit of the trapped seraph, or what religion had their description and customs matched best. With only a few people allowed to bear witness to the event, each had taken up study of other traditions just in case. If it fell to one of the obscure religions, hopefully paying lip-service would be enough.

"Are we ready?" Voorhees asked. The Deacon was attired in his most garish of ceremonial vestments: white background decorated with embroidered hues of gold, green and purple. Nothing was overlooked in his dress. He wanted to make sure, during whatever occurred here, the heavenly hosts that he was hoping to come, would recognize not only the mark on his soul from his Holy Orders, but also the symbols in his vestments.

"Yes," Clayton answered simply, matching his simple attire of a black tailored suit with a demonic crest on one lapel and the grey shirt.

Antolovich gave a nod as well but only allowed his eyes to meet his leader's for a second before training them back on Robert Chase who was still struggling against the inevitable. The Priest knew it was only a matter of time and unlike some of the others, who shifted anxiously their weight from foot to foot, he was a man of patience. Robert would die, when his soul began its ascent (or descent) he would find himself trapped by the markings and through the small void in the barrier between corporeal and non-corporeal they would be able to communicate and barter with the beings on the other side.

The moment began to draw near, indicated by Chase's increasingly laboured breaths. The heavy taste of blood in his mouth made him gag, rocking his head up and down as the liquid found it's way into his lungs. The drone of prayers, chants and psalms began around him. One stood out from all.

"By the holy names of God written in this book, and by the other holy and ineffable names which are written in the _Book of Life_, we conjure ye to come unto us promptly and without any delay…"

The words lulled him to an uneasy peace and dulled his senses into a greyish world.

"…wherefore tarry not, but appear in a beautiful and agreeable form and figure, by these Holy names: Adonai, Tzaboath, El, Elohi, Elohim, Shaddai…"

The sounds and words mixed together and his body hummed with them, a deep part of him responding instinctively.

---H/C---

"Let go…give up…stop fighting…"

---H/C---

House, the name came to him a moment after the memory of the words did. He trusted House, admired at his brilliance but he couldn't do what House was asking. He couldn't give up the life he'd fought tooth and nail to build, and return to another life he'd run far to escape.

The burn of the inscribed metals at his wrists and neck began to intensify. It was a pain he welcomed because it waxed as the discomfort of the rest of his body waned. The relief was so much that Chase closed his eyes and as if asleep found himself in a dream.

---H/C---

"We must know which one he is…"

---H/C---

A goat walking like a man to his left, a bright sun beating its blinding and burning rays down on him from the right, and as always his protectors, his companions, his brothers at his sides, always faithful.

A question floated through his mind. He'd always run from it before, unable to produce and answer. He could do the same again and he knew Azrael and Azazel would protect him as they had taken it upon themselves to do. But what would that accomplish, putting it off for more years? He hadn't felt ready the times before. He'd been too ignorant of the truth to even attempt to find an answer, but that had changed. He had changed.

It was time, after this, his twenty-eighth year of life on earth, he would accept the life before, without forgetting his life so far.

---H/C---

"Do you love me?"

"Please…please, say it."

---H/C---

"I am Mastema."

---H/C---

Chase let go. Chase gave up. Chase succumb.

He began to choke. His eyes became wide as his back arced in the last throws of struggle against inevitable death.

The chants and prayers trailed off and all eyes took in the scene of a young man as his body fought for life.

Finally he slumped to the floor pale and still. Then he took a deep, easy, soothing breath. Another followed, and another, and more, until it was the unmistakeable pattern of uncomplicated breathing.

Chase pushed himself to sit up. He turned his head and spit out the blood in his mouth, wiping the wet red streaks on his face away with his hand.

"Well, I'm glad that's over," he announced his voice exactly as it should have been when well-rested, and healthy. The Australian lilt was light and cheerful and his eyes, when he looked over at them, were free and clear of pain.

"What…what happened? Why…why—"

"Why aren't I dead?" Chase asked, standing. He looked down and realized that they'd relieved him of everything but his underwear. "No ceremonial garments this time?" he asked with a raise of his brow and a smirk on his lips.

The humour was lost on all of them.

Chase shook his head, disappointed. "You humans."

With those two words, those two dark and belittling words, the group of religious men knew that they were not speaking to Robert Chase, the Australian physician and son of a famous rheumatologist.

What they thought they knew was wrong though. They were speaking to Robert Chase. They were also speaking to the rest of him, the part of him that had been dormant and locked away for almost thirty years.

"Mastema?"

Chase smiled. "Mastema, Prince of Darkness, Accusing Angel –I've collected a lot of names. Demon, death-dealer, Plague, the devil –that has to be one of my favourites –Angel of Injustice, I've even been called God."

He sounded perfectly normal, if not a little peeved at the situation. Had they not been so sure of themselves (though that surety was lessening) they would have thought this was just a regular man from Australia. At least they would have thought that until he tried to step forward and was repelled by an invisible barrier.

"That's a neat trick," Chase remarked and reached out to touch the barrier.

One of the men came to a realization that he hoped would put them back in charge. It might not be too late to salvage what they had started. "He's still bound by the enchantments."

Chase sent a glare at that man. He swallowed thickly under the gaze and took a faltering half-stride back. Still his announcement bolstered the others.

"Obey ye, obey ye, behold the symbols and names of the creator; be ye gentle and peaceable, and obey in all things that we shall command ye!"

Chase's head twisted from side to side. The unnatural and impossibly rapid movements blurred his face. The final convulsion ended with his face heavenward and a scream on his lips. His breath expelled, his muscles lifeless, he collapsed to hands and knees.

The room was silent. Nobody dared to move.

Chase raised his head and looked up at them. His slack, tired, sweaty face pulled into a sudden grin. "Just kidding." He rose and stepped forward, slipping easily through the barrier.

His eyes were glowing and soon the rest of his body followed suit. The blood stains were drowned in the luminosity. Six resplendent wings materialized at his back once again, showing the form of the heavenly host.

"This isn't right," Clayton stated. His faith in the Key of Solomon and the ancient incantations ran the deepest of all of them. They had never failed him. They couldn't fail him now.

As though hearing his thoughts Chase rejoined. "Cheap parlour tricks." He held up his wrist and gestured to the bracelets. "That's all these are." A flick of his wrist and the metal bands fell off in an instant to the dusty floor. They didn't clatter at all upon contact. Instead they fell as though they weighed a tonne and imbedded themselves in the hard rock.

"I'm not like the others you've dealt with," Chase went on. "I don't follow your pitiful rules. I won't yield to your weak grasp of incorporeal law. Unlike my brother, I will kneel to you." And he went to one knee and did just that, his arms and wings outspread and his face defiant. "But I do not, and will never, serve you."

They didn't notice during the delivery of his words, the edges of the room darkened with spectres and spirits that they had not summoned. The walls rippled and from the shallow recesses in the walls that marked sacred graves of sacred individuals hands and head pushed out, warping the grey-brown matter.

"Then help us," Voorhees demanded imperiously. Some of his counterparts faintly retreated but he stepped forward. He reminded himself that this was just a man, barely a man even. An abomination.

Chase smirked. "Help you? Help you how?" Chase walked fluidly over to him, stepped intimately close and whispered, "I can help you in lots of ways. Ways you've dreamed of." His hand lightly drew over the chest and belly of the older man. Chase leaned to whisper into the Deacon's ear, "I can make you feel so good." His had just reached the destination of his southward journey when Voorhees pushed him away.

"You're a deviant," Voorhees spat, red-faced.

"Am I?" Chase ran the middle finger of his right hand gently over his bottom lip. "Who's the one denying himself some of the best pleasures this life has to offer?" Chase sucked the finger into his mouth.

"This life has poisoned your mind, tainted your soul. You must go back."

Chase looked at Antolovich and removed the finger from his mouth after one last suck.

"And you would send me back? Force me back?"

"If we have to."

Chase laughed. His eyes brightened so much that even when the men turned their gazes away their eyes still stung. "What makes you think I'd let you?"

He'd had enough of them and let his anger influence his will so that he would take his vengeance.

The darkness swirled between them and blew out the many candles lit around the room. From seemingly nowhere the holy men, were attacked. Scratches, blows and torments hailed upon them. Tears of blood fell from their eyes and the metallic taste filled their mouths. The symbols of their religion, the symbols of protection they wore began to heat and those that lay against skin seared lasting scars into their flesh. Frantic cries for help, for mercy, quickly filled the chamber but it fell on deaf ears and the torments continued.

The only exit slammed closed as one man made a dash for it. They were trapped.

Mastema walked through the panicked group. His aura made him the only source of light and the only clearly visible person in the room.

"Mastema, stop this!" Antolovich yelled. He sounded less perturbed than a person in his situation had the right to be.

"Are you asking me, a deviant, for help? Me, with my poisoned soul?" Chase smirked. "'Judge not lest ye be judged'. And possibly sooner than you think."

Chase never saw the blow coming. The tall and heavy candle mount was raised high and brought quickly down strike him across his back. It would have been a terrible blow, had it struck. Instead the metal implement clattered to the floor as an invisible spectre knocked the man to his back.

Chase looked around at the distress he was causing and smiled. "What hath I wrought?" he taunted, his voice deep, low and reverberating through every molecule around him. It coursed through bodies, shook stone, and rattled the entire structure causing dust to fall from the rafters. Stepping over and past the tortured bodies of the venerated gentlemen, Chase made his way to the exit. It opened for him with no trouble. He spared one glance back at the agonized men. In a flash, the darkness, the shadows, the torments disappeared. In their mind's eye however what they witnessed would take time to fade.

Chase smiled at the room now empty of all but the group of men. He stepped out with a final farewell. "Salam alaikum." One last crash of windows breaking and stones splitting shook the building. The door to the Chapel of St. Vartan slammed shut. Mastema had gone.

---H/C---

It took several minutes before the ever-determined Antolovich found his way up from the ground and out of the chapel. Voorhees and some of the others followed, stumbling and then crawling when their legs gave out.

"We must find him," Antolovich repeated to himself. "It's not too late." How they would find him and control him was beyond his level of thinking at the moment. All he could focus on was the end not the means.

Until they got to the foyer of the church and saw what had happened. Then they knew Mastema was out of their hands, beyond their control, for good.

Each small chapel with its special dedication to a small but important aspect of the faiths celebrated within the walls, had on either side of its altar a portion of the bedrock visible behind a protective glass. The protective glass was still in tact, as were the greatly valued artistic treasures located there. The only damage found were deep wide cracks through each revealed portion of the bedrock. The earth had been split, with perfect precision. It was a warning that they wisely heeded.

---H/C---

"Why won't you take your own advice? Give up."

A merciless kick was delivered to House's gut. His slow awkward crawl ended with the breath forced out, and him trying to gasp in pain on the floor.

"We were told to get rid of him." The goon looked around the small half-built or half-demolished building. It was hard to tell which in its decrepit and unkempt state, and only half a roof. It didn't matter which. The structure provided some cover to get rid of the foreigner.

"But make it look like a mugging," Jordan added with a smile. The man enjoyed his work. "Besides, I want to see the look in his eyes when the call comes that Robert is dead and our goal is achieved." He crouched next to the battered man whose eyes had closed against the pain inflicted by the three men around him. "When all your hope is gone, when all your pain is for nothing, I'll put you out of your obvious misery."

House opened his eyes and stared daggers at Jordan.

"But you were miserable before we came along. Your limp, your cane, your pain –doesn't take a genius to see that you don't like your life. So I'm going to do what you've been too cowardly to."

House could admit to himself that there were moments when death had seemed preferable to the life he was limping through, but there had never been anything to push him that little extra bit further. In fact, there had always been something or someone to pull him back: Stacey, one of his few friends, his work. But he wasn't feeling depressed today, he was angry, afraid sure, but mostly angry.

Jordan looked at his watch. "He should be dying right about now." He didn't know that with any certainty but he liked the defiance in the stark eyes that glared up at him. "I bet he'll spend his last moments shivering and convulsing in a pool of his own blood." He gave a rough pat to a stubbled cheek. "Your last moments will be quicker. I'm a merciful person."

"Taking lessons from your merciful God that would ask you to kill people in his name?" House questioned because it was his nature.

"What we do today is for us, for all of humanity. The rest of our lives we live for God, or Allah, or whoever we consider out saviour, our guide. But what of you? Who's your compass? Who do you turn to when all else had failed?" Jordan pulled out his gun –the same one that had shot Warren Mayes– and aimed at House. "Who will intervene to save your life?"

'There are no atheists in fox holes,' he'd once heard someone say. Perhaps it was just the mechanics of language that put a holy diety on the lips of anyone in a panicked or desperate situation. Even House recalled that at his lowest moments he'd held one-sided conversations with "God", though on a day to day basis he was quick to scoff at those who were more consistent with their faith.

With a gun aimed at his head and nobody around to assist him, this was usually where even a sceptical, man of science might forget, or temporarily put aside his beliefs to embrace one that had no stipulations except that he have a little faith. But he couldn't. Greg House could not pray to, or beg of God to save him when it was the same God that the people, who'd trapped him in this situation, purported to serve.

Greg closed his eyes, knowing that by their, and by his own definition there was nobody to save him.

I'm old, I'm tired, I'm ready to go, House tried to convince himself. It didn't work.

He was still hoping that somehow something, someone would bring this to a halt –divine intervention, suicide bomber, stampeding water buffalo, anything, because even senseless, selfish hope sprung eternal.

A loud bang and a bright muzzle flash burst through the room as a bullet was unleashed at lethal speed. House jerked, more in surprise and fright than in pain. He didn't feel anything yet. Only when he heard Jordan curse and heard the clatter of something metal hitting the stained concrete did House realize he wasn't the one who had been hit.

"Why the hell did you shoot me?" The outrage in Jordan's voice was only outmatched by the pain evident on his face as he clutched his injured right arm.

The other man with the gun, the one who'd fired the shot could only stand there, shaking his head. He didn't know what had come over him. He didn't have the words to describe the sudden and inexplicable onslaught of thoughts and urges all instructing him to shoot his boss. There wasn't a part of him that could resist, and he hadn't. It wasn't his fault. He couldn't get the words out, between Jordan's cursing and his own shock, but the sentiment was clear in his eyes.

Only House had the prior experience to make sense of what he'd read from the shooter's body language. He'd felt the same thing one before, then he'd made Chase promise never to pull that trick on him again. These other men however, were fair game.

One was armed with a knife. He brought it to his own throat. The one who'd just shot his colleague put the warm barrel to his own head. Jordan let go of his injured arm, picked up his gun with his bloodied left hand, and against his better judgement and his will, pressed the tip to the soft depression under his jaw. His finger tightened around the trigger.

"Such efficient killing implements. I thought perhaps you'd like to try what your people have been perfecting since the day you stepped onto the earth."

House tried his best to look around without aggravating his injuries. He knew that voice. He'd know it almost anywhere, except in Australia where all the Aussie accents might disorient him somewhat. Anywhere else House could not mistake the sound the Chase's voice.

"Who are you?"

Dumb question, House thought.

"That's a stupid question. Surely you know the person you've been so determined to kill."

Outside the early evening became night in the space of a few moments. The sun vanished behind deep black clouds, and even the light from a bright advertisement dulled until there was hardly any light from it at all. It was unnatural darkness, both in its onset and in the way it remained. Flat, dark nothingness enveloped and the world shrunk down to the five men, three of whom appeared to have suddenly become suicidal.

As though one with it, a bright figure walked out of the darkness, waves of shadows separating as he came. Fearful eyes followed its approach, the Tenth Order members with the weapons still threatening their lives and House who gave into his instinct and tried to scoot away. He was too hurt, too weak and too slow. The being knelt next to him and for a moment the brightness dimmed and House saw a familiar face. It was Chase in there somewhere, though now his features were stony, unemotional, perfectly detached.

Cold fear, had never gripped him so tightly. His heart struggled to pump, his lungs struggled to breathe, but a gentle touch to his face, and the fear was doused like a candle against a tsunami.

House's eyes focussed one the oceanic eyes that sought his out through the painful luminance, and for a moment nothing mattered except that moment and each one as it came and went, and they were perfect. Harmony, grace, understanding. It was overwhelming. House found he couldn't speak, he had no words, but two perfect tears fell, one from each eye, clearing a narrow trail in layer of dirt and blood

Then he flinched and the moment was gone, leaving him bereft, with only his pain, his wet face and a memory of awe.

The reason for the flinch didn't hit him until after Chase helped him up and they were heading for the exit. The goon closest to it, the one with the knife, fell to his knees with the muted sound of bone hitting the hard floor. House looked over expecting to see a torrent of blood and dying eyes. Instead he saw profound relief and enormous disbelief; because the sharp blade of his deadly weapon had, against his will, been forced across his neck with his own hand. Only the growing pool of liquid on the floor wasn't red and didn't smell like blood. It was clear and yellowish, explaining the growing dark patch on the man's pants.

The other two with the gunmen were similarly alive, much to their shock. They had pulled the trigger. They had expected death. They had not expected both their guns to jam. It was hugely unlikely but House even in his own shock knew that probabilities had nothing to do with it.

"Yes," the Australian accented voice drawled with contempt, "It's a miracle."

---H/C---

"It's a miracle."

"It's not a miracle!"

Cameron and Foreman looked at Henderson. They were surprised by his outburst. Who wouldn't be? The man had been silent for the entire discussion. They'd practically forgotten he was standing there.

"You believe in spontaneous remissions but not this?" Wilson questioned.

The psychiatrist pursed his lips in aggravation. "I believe in what makes sense. Cancer can undergo remission because cells die –even cancerous ones. Schizophrenia is not like cancer. It doesn't just go away."

"You were the one telling us that it couldn't be an infection, or trauma, or anything else, but now you're jumping on the bandwagon?" Foreman questioned, as was his nature.

"I also believe in evidence and I, unlike your boss, can admit when I'm wrong. Something you guys did…worked." Henderson took one more look at the patient that had been baffling them for over a week and then turned down the corridor. The other three doctors remained on their patient, the one who was…cured.

"Maybe it was encephalitis," Wilson suggested.

"The course of antibiotics was too short to be effective," Foreman muttered.

Cameron wasn't as quick to dismiss the suggestion. "Maybe her immune system just needed a kick start. Once the antibiotic marked her infection as foreign her own immune system took over and finished the job on its own."

"In one day?" Foreman said, his eyes still on the woman on the other side of the glass. Angelica Brown was laughing with the nurse administering to her at the moment. They bantered awkwardly back and forth in a reserved but completely sane conversation.

"Well it has to be something."

"No," Wilson said, "it doesn't." He smiled at nothing in particular and took his leave.

The two diagnostics fellows followed his exit, wondering what it was that he understood that they didn't.

"It could still be Varicella. She's had the chicken pox so she's a carrier of the virus. That in combination with an immune deficiency could cause flare ups of encephalitis that were mistreated as psychosis…" Cameron trailed off seeing Foreman nodding.

He continued, completing and rounding out the logical story. "The antipsychotics could have cause neuroleptic agent toxicity. Her anti-crazy meds effectively making her crazy. It fits."

They looked at each other, somewhat convinced of their theory but still wondering if it was really the way they described.

At the end of the corridor Wilson shook his head. He could accept that there were things he'd never understand. There were times when everyone had to. There was simply no other choice.

---H/C---

"No! Get up!"

House opened his eyes at the frantic plea but didn't even attempt to meet the demand asked of him.

"You're not glowing anymore…" Was that his voice? It was so tired, slurred even. He wasn't high on his pills and Vicodin had never done that to him before.

"I think we're both starting to feel the strain of the past few hours." Chase told him.

House was going to say that Chase looked pretty good considering he was nearly dead a few hours ago but something caught his eye. It was some reflected light from the shiny paint job of a parked car. It made his head hurt but he shouldn't have bothered him at all, because Chase was in the way and most people made better doors than windows.

"Are you dead?"

Chase could see in House's body the language the trepidation over what the answer might be, though his voice was perfectly clear of it.

"No."

"Then…how…" House was fatigued. He couldn't find the words he wanted so he gestured weakly with his hand and looked through Chase's chest again. Chase looked down at himself and noticed how faint he was.

"I'm just tired," he explained. "Astral projection is more difficult than I thought."

House didn't hear the last part of the Chase's answer. His eyes were drifting shut. "I'm tired too."

"No. No, no, no. You can't sleep yet! House!" Chase reached out to touch the other man but his hands passed right through. "Shit!"

"What now?" House's eyes were closed and Chase knew that if House crashed here they would be in big trouble. Jordan and the other Tenth Order henchmen were still alive and they might come looking. An opportunistic thug also might stumble upon them and that scenario didn't promise to end any better than the first. He had to get House out of here, but with only his weakening figment there wasn't much he could do.

"House. House! You can't sleep yet. You need to get up. It's almost over, we just have to get you home." Chase reached out a hand again and was relieved when he felt House's crumpled shirt. He leaned in close so that his lips were brushing Houses ear and spoke. "Please, Greg. There's not much more. Just trust me. I'll take care of you. I'll bring you home." His eyes beginning to glow a faint white again, Chase leant over and laid his lips on House's. He breathed new vitality into him, taking from his own. His body grew fainter.

But House, he opened his eyes. Weak and weary he made it to his feet on his own, Chase no longer able to assist him physically.

"Home?" House asked weakly.

"Yeah…home."

All House could see was Chase's form before him and the promise of comforts only found in familiar settings. He began forward, one foot in front of the other, closing the long journey with this final stage. Chase remained in front of him, guiding him, urging him to take one step and then another, and more still. House could barely recall each step after he took it. He didn't remember the cab ride to the airport either, or that no payment was handed over with the cabbie apparently not minding. He noticed vaguely when his surroundings changed. The alley became a cab, became an airport became the interior of an airplane.

The boarding pass had been slipped into his hand by a man in a nice suit that House had never met before. He'd walked right through the security checks without being asked a word. The flight attendants at the boarding gate didn't spare a second on him. Nobody bothered him and House had just kept walking all the way to his business class seat.

"…Robert…"

"I'm right here."

House opened his eyes and indeed his faint companion was knelt right before him, his feet disappearing into the back of the seat in front.

He was going to ask how all this had happened, what Chase had done to manipulate this situation into existence. When his mouth opened, he asked only what mattered. "Stay?"

A light touch fell on his face. He sighed and slept.

---H/C---

**End Chapter 11**


	13. Wonderland Welcome

**A/N: **Only one chapter left!

**Chapter 12: Wonderland Welcome**

Wilson approached cautiously. House was the only one he knew of that could wrangle Cuddy when she was this pissed. Granted it was usually House that made her mad in the first place. Wilson didn't see what House found so amusing about these situations.

"He said they were fine."

"The last time you spoke to him. What, three days ago?"

"Two."

The correction was answered by a fierce glare. "Other side of the planet and he's still giving me hypertension." She turned her glare to the atrium that greeted patients when they first walked through the main entrance. On the second floor mezzanine, where she and Wilson stood overlooking the entrance, the rest of the rooms were dark and quiet. They were mostly meeting rooms and few people held meetings at one thirty on Saturday morning.

The hospital was still running though. People took ill, or were injured at all times of the day. And of course there were also the eager, busy body doctors that just wouldn't go home. Cuddy's eyes followed Dr. Cameron as she dropped a file off on the deserted clinic station.

"Doesn't anybody in this hospital have a life?" Cuddy mumbled to herself.

"You should go home. Get some rest."

"How am I supposed to do that? House is off in God-knows-where doing who-knows-what and he's dragged Chase along with him." She shook her head, her frustration over her missing employees magnified by the unhelpful FBI investigation.

"This isn't your fault."

Lisa glared at him.

"This isn't my fault either."

"Well I can't blame the person I want to blame because he isn't around right now!" Cuddy's head dipped and her grip on the rail tightened while she collected herself.

Wilson clenched his jaw to prevent his own words of frustration from flying out and making the situation any worse. His eyes strayed over the open area not taking anything in until he saw the front doors being pushed open.

"Oh my God," Cuddy heard Wilson say faintly. She felt his hand fall on her shoulder and then he was gone. She opened her eyes to see him running for the stairs. She looked to the lower level to see what had sent him off and then she was running too.

"House?"

House didn't hear the voice of the immunologist on his team. He didn't see her standing not far from him. His eyes were focussed on the faint image a few steps before him, the outstretched arms, the soft welcoming smile.

'You're almost there.'

House took another step. His weak legs barely held him up, but he was almost there. The distance between them was beginning to grow shorter.

'You did it,' the familiar voice told him while another called his name and asked if he was alright.

"House!"

'You're home.'

He reached out to the faint apparition, the last of his strength evaporating the moment it was no longer needed. House collapsed, but not into the arms he'd been struggling towards.

Cameron couldn't support House's dead weight but she awkwardly managed to get them both to the floor without injury.

"House?" she called trying to get a response from him. Her eyes were already assessing his state but her furious thoughts came to an abrupt halt when House whispered a name.

"Robert…"

Her stunned gaze was frozen on his head, where it rested on her chest. Had her eyes been anywhere else she might have missed how the unruly hair a little above House's temple ruffled as though someone had laid a gentle caress there.

"Is he alright? Cameron?"

Wilson's frantic voice pierced through her alarm. "I…I don't know."

Cuddy arrived a moment later and Cameron dismissed what she'd seen as she was swept up in the excitement and concern over House and his return.

"Where's Chase?" Wilson asked at some point in the fracas.

Cameron gave a shake of her head as an answer and continued working on House.

Chase's form, standing back from the action, stared longingly and faded away.

Thousands of miles away a man awoke with a gasp to a tired and achy body. It was dark and the wind that blew through the small alcove was cold. Chase shivered and pulled in tighter. He raised his head briefly before letting it fall against the cool outer wall with a dull thud. Now he had to find his own way home. It'd have to wait. He was too tired to do more than close his eyes and sleep.

---H/C---

Cameron slid the door to the hospital room closed. Her eyes, sullen and glassy were trained, unseeingly, on the speckled floor pattern. A pair of brown cap-toe oxfords slipped into her line of sight.

"How is he?"

Cameron shook her head minutely and responded without looking at Wilson. "Sarcastic, cruel, miserable, in pain."

"So his usual self," Wilson said with a slight smile. Cameron didn't see it but she would hear it in his voice.

"I guess. He keeps asking for news on Chase."

Wilson didn't see why that was worth mentioning. "He's worried. We all are."

"Right," she agreed, though her tone implied she didn't. "He's stable. No complications from his surgery. He'll be fine."

Wilson peered into the House's hospital room. "I can't believe he made it all the way here bleeding internally."

"The bleed may have started or only became serious when he got here."

"Convenient."

"So you think it's more likely that some mystical force kept the bleed in check just long enough for him to get back here?"

"I think it's one more strange thing to add to a list of strange things that have been going on here. You saw him yesterday. He was walking! Not limping, not shuffling, Walking! And without his cane!"

"Trauma can sometimes cause the brain's perception of pain to--"

"You've been talking to Foreman," Wilson stated before she could finish.

"Do you have a better idea? Why would he be able to walk normally, with no pain for that brief stretch only to have it come back again? His leg is still hurting him!"

"His leg shouldn't be hurting him," Wilson uttered suspiciously. "He's on morphine from the surgery. He shouldn't be great but it shouldn't be bad." Wilson gazed through the glass again and started taking in the subtle nuances of the way House was laying there, staring up at the ceiling.

House's body language included an intricate dialect in pain. To be as close a friend as he was, Wilson had to become fluent in reading it and acting accordingly. Pushing House on a bad pain day was something he'd quickly learnt not to do unless he wanted his conscience nagging him and House's glare and hurtful words resounding in his head for days after.

Thus Wilson turned his attention to careful examination of House's form. At first glance he was simply zoned out, staring at the fluorescent light, but not even House contemplated a light with that much interest. His face was tense. His jaw was set, clenched shut and his lips pressing hard against each other. Only House's right hand could be seen from Wilson's vantage. It was resting atop the sheets, palm down, fingers moving in a leisurely pattern, up the fabric and then down. It didn't mean anything to Wilson at first and he nearly dismissed it as idle movements. He was probably bored and fidgeting. House rarely sat still unless there was something particularly entertaining on the television. But he wasn't fidgeting out of boredom, or restlessness. He wasn't fidgeting at all.

Had that right hand been in the same position on House's right thigh, it would have been applying a deep, concentrated massage that Wilson had only seen House use a handful of times when the pain of his infarct remnants overcame his pain management methods.

Wilson hurried past Cameron and shut the door behind him without saying a word.

"How bad is the pain?"

"I'm fine," House grumbled without unclenching his jaw.

"No, you're not."

"If you already know I'm in pain, then why ask?" House didn't take his eyes from the ceiling. Wilson noted that even his blink looked pained and forced.

"I asked how bad it was."

"I've had worse."

"You also have morphine available, and you never, just do something. You always have a reason. You're always testing a hypothesis."

"Maybe the trip to the Holy Land saved me. I've been reborn. I hear it's all the rage, repenting and turning from your wicked ways."

"You love your wicked ways. You'd never repent, you can barely apologize. Your drugs, your booze, your misery, even your pain is part of you. But you've never let it overrun you without a reason."  
He watched House's eyes close when a strong wave of discomfort crashed over him. Wilson went for the morphine drip.

"Don't!" House caught him before he Wilson could start the drug's delivery to his bloodstream.

"You need the morphine. I'm not going to let you suffer for no reason."

"I can make my own decisions! I don't have to explain myself to you."

"What possible explanation could you have for this much pain?"

Ready to lash out, the poisonous words already on his tongue, he paused. The explanation was baseless, farfetched in his own mind, even after all he'd seen.

The fight left him, the feeble words slipped forth. "He cares if I'm in pain. If I am… he'll come back."

The next several seconds of stunned silence was interrupted only by the beep of the heart rate monitor.

Finally Wilson found his voice, though not all of his wits. "He'll come back…?"

House slouched farther back into the bed, the pull on his stitches uncomfortable in every position. His eyes went back to the ceiling. "He took the pain away," House informed, though Wilson's confusion remained.

"…Chase?"

House was weary. He was listless and unsure of both himself and the situation. Being back in PPTH was like coming out of the rabbit hole. In the grim light of New Jersey day, the things he'd accepted as normal out of necessity, were again, the things he hated and the things to which he'd always denied existence.

How was he going to explain to Wilson what he didn't understand himself? All he knew for certain was that Chase, when they weren't at each other's throat (and sometimes even when they were), he made the pain less sharp, and less fated. For some demented, romantic, clearly drug induced moments House thought he saw and end to his pain. And for a brief stretch of time, when it had been the most dire, Chase was there and he took the pain away. One touch, one will, he plucked the right string and his body was in tune.

"He…he's not…he makes me feel better."

Sadly, no admission could have been more filled with shame than that.

---H/C---

It was all so new to him, and yet completely familiar. Sights, sounds, smells, it was like experiencing sensation for the first time. All around him people went about their business, their belonging tucked under an arm or in a pocket as they sped from one task to another. He tried to recall what he knew he'd forgotten but could only see the greater image.

He knew that he was something else, and that he had things to do, somewhere to be and someone to find but he couldn't recall. There were no memories in his mind but there had been before. He knew that, though he couldn't fathom what it had been like or what the memories were. Nothing was familiar, not his surroundings, not the language spoken around him. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a glass window. Not even his body was familiar. His face belonged to a stranger.

The flow of pedestrians picked him up again and he continued walking because he didn't know what else to do. Between the blur of faces and the blur of places, his confusion grew but at the same time became less intense. It was like taking a step out of his body and watching things occur at a distance. What it was, was a monumental shift in perspective though he saw through the same eyes.

He stood on the peak of Mount Moriah, underneath a gilded dome and saw a beach, an expanse of water, a blazing sun. He didn't know when or how he arrived there, or how long ago. He knew only that he chose, some time ago, to be here. He knew that he didn't want to go back. He wasn't ready yet.

"I don't understand," someone said as they walked up and stood next to him.

"Only because you don't want to."

"Perhaps I just know better than you."

"Or perhaps admitting you care about someone other than yourself would make what you do more difficult."

"Well we can't all have breakdowns, can we?"

"You think I'm weak, Azazel?"

"I would have said fragile."

"I think you're jealous."

"I would have said afraid. How long do you think you'll be allowed to remain here before one side forces you back? You're position is unique. Nobody else can do what you do."

"Nobody else wants to." His eyes lost focus and the bright scenery blurred. Tourists came into focus, and the ornate mosaics covering the walls, before fading away again. "Who wants to make the righteous suffer and make victims of the innocent?"

"If they are truly righteous, then they overcome," the demon answered without hesitation. "And the innocent…those crimes don't mark their souls. Mastema, you can't let them continue to reach you like this."

"But I have a duty. You said it yourself. I'm unique, I'm phenomenal at what I do; I test them in ways you would never imagine. But how am I to do that unless I know what hurts them the most? How can I know their pain without it touching me?"

"…you can't."

---H/C---

House knew he was asleep. He knew because an indeterminate amount of time ago he'd felt his lids becoming heavy and had been relieved to find an escape from his pain. His mind's venue for escape turned out to be a giant, empty place. It wasn't dark or light and though he was seated, there was something solid but yielding under him, House couldn't see what it was. He could see the man next to him, a man he was sure was dead. And that was how he began the conversation.

"I know," Warren replied scathingly. House was taken aback by the hostility. "You wouldn't be happy if you were me either. You've finally done the right thing and you get a bullet for your troubles."

"I…suppose not."

"I don't have a lot of time here, so listen carefully." Mayes leaned close to House who couldn't help but lean minutely back. "Either take care of him, or let him go. No halfway about it."

"And what will you do if I decide to mess with him? Will you haunt me from the grave? If invading dreams is the best you can do, you need to talk with your agent."

Mayes shook his head but sat back to a more acceptable interpersonal distance. "There's nothing I can do. I'm forgetting things and what I do remember…is faint and getting fainter. I'm not even sure who we're talking about or who you are. But I know this is important. I can only hope that hurting him would be enough of a deterrent. I don't have the power to threaten you."

"No, only talk to me from beyond the grave."

House sat there, trying not to think about what Mayes had said. He didn't believe Mayes was anything more than a figment of his exhausted mind, giving him a representation of a man he knew only briefly as the speaker of what House would not acknowledge consciously.

The other man stood and began away. He paused in his exit to say, "He doesn't need you and you don't need him, but I think you'd both be a lot better off with each other."

House didn't notice his hospital room swimming into focus as he came out of his dream. He almost thought he was still dreaming when he saw who was laying next to him.

"Chase?"

Translucent eyes opened. A beatific smile appeared on the blond's face. House might usually have scoffed, or smirked, or simply turned away, but he'd never seen this look before. And if he had, he never would have expected it to be directed at him. Except, now that it was the only thing he could do was smile back. He reached up to touch his face his hand only registered the barest of contact before it continued on. House pulled back, disappointment in his expression. "You're not really here. I'm hallucinating."

House took a better look and noticed that he could see through Chase. Not only was he a hallucination but it was a poor hallucination. But the hallucination moved, shifting to lean over the hospital patient. The sheets the illusion rested on didn't move. When the faint hand reached up to touch his chin House didn't expect to feel the touch.

"I'm not a hallucination," the familiar voice said in what barely amounted to a whisper.

"So…where are you?"

Chase shrugged. "I'm not sure. But I remember now."

House blinked slowly, trying to clear the fog that was making Chase's complicated answers even more complicated. "Are you coming back?"

"…yes."

"When?"

"I don't know. Soon, hopefully." Chase turned his stare to the IV that House had turned off. "Take the pain killers."

"No."

"Please?"

"Promise you'll come back," House demanded stubbornly.

House swore he felt the air brush against his cheek when Chase sighed before responding.

"I promise."

The kiss they shared a moment later barely registered any sensation on House's lips. The light touch faded all too soon. House opened his eyes and found himself alone. Several minutes passed, in which he stared at the ceiling lights and wondered where Chase was and what he was doing.

"Hey, you okay?" Cameron asked, poking her head into House's room on one of her multiple daily visits. Sometimes House responded to her, other times he didn't say a word. Seconds passed without a response and Cameron was about to go, assuming that this would be one of the silent days. As she was about to go House called out.

"Wait. Restart the morphine," he instructed reluctantly.

"Are you sure?" she asked walking over.

House closed his eyes. "Yeah…I'm sure."

It was with relief and a faint smile that Cameron reset and started the control for the intravenous morphine drip. Once she was done, she left without another word and quietly closed the door. Her first stop once she stepped away was to Wilson's office. She barged in without knocking to find Wilson staring blankly at the chart in front of him. It wasn't actually a blank stare, but contemplating how much of her life his patient was going to miss when she died of cancer was about as productive.

"He asked for the morphine."

He didn't have to ask who. "Did his pain get worse?"

"No," Cameron answered, sounding surprisingly happy. Usually she of the opinion that House took too many pain killers. "He just asked for them out of the blue."

The blue pen in the oncologist's hand tapped against his desk a few times. He shook his head. "He wouldn't give up like that."

"Give up what?" Cameron wasn't dumb. She knew there was something House wasn't telling her. She knew whatever it was Wilson wasn't telling her either. The hard press of his lips and his averted eyes said he wasn't about to divulge. "Is it about Chase?" she asked as though she was taking a random shot in the dark that she didn't expect to be true. But of course it was about Chase. What else would have House asking whether anyone had heard from their intensive care specialist at least once a day? Why else would Wilson glance at her then away, and then lie?

"No, it's not him."

Cameron looked to the ceiling with a huff. "He's an adult he can take care of himself. You and House should stop worrying about him and worry about House."

"House is going to be fine. Chase is the one still missing."

"That's Chase's problem."

Wilson sat back in his chair and looked at Cameron in surprise. "I though you were friends."

Cameron's head raised and by the set of her shoulders Wilson knew that she was about to tell a half-truth, if not a full out lie. "Chase is nothing but a colleague."

"And House is just your boss," Wilson countered sarcastically. "You realise this isn't Chase's fault."

"You realise that if it weren't for Chase, none of this would have happened. Ergo, it has to be his fault. I thought at least you would be able to see that."

"I suppose House is just blinded by love." Wilson watched Cameron swallow something, something bitter by the look of it, before she was gone.

---H/C---

Foreman was glad to be leaving for the day. It was Easter Monday but he'd taken the shift at the clinic just so that he could tell his parents he was busy and couldn't make it home. The clinic was also a good way to avoid the rest of his department. Though with House checked-in as a patient and Chase still in the wind, Foreman was only avoiding Cameron.

He was tired of her griping and worrying. She'd given up on their formerly schizophrenic patient –the only topic Foreman was really interested in discussing with her– and was focused on whatever had happened with House and Chase.

Today being only a half-day for him, Foreman had managed to stay out of Cameron's sight and was feeling quite good, if somewhat tired, on his way home. He resolved for a quiet night in, not that he had many other options, and decided to make a stop at a fine food mart that sold a particular brand of wine he enjoyed. The only problem with the small grocer was its location.

Nestled between a dry cleaner and a tiny law-firm the strip mall was an assembly area for the riffraff of the area. The area wasn't all that seedy, only a few blocks from a major town centre, but those who weren't allowed to sit and beg for change in that area, having been forced away, had relocated here.

"And all the parking is full, of course," Foreman mumbled to himself. The tiny parking lot always seemed to be full leaving the physician no choice but to park his BMW in the lot for the neighbouring group of small businesses. It wasn't all that much of a trek to his destination from his parking space. It just meant that he'd have to cross paths with people who had somehow managed to make themselves homeless. And now they pestered him for handouts, financing for whatever scam they were going to run next.

Eyes on his destination Foreman quickly marched by the alley between the two short buildings where the majority of the disenfranchised sat huddled against the spring chill. So intent on ignoring the shortfalls of society he didn't notice a familiar face in the mix.

"Foreman?" he whispered to himself, thinking he had just spied his colleague dart past the alleyway. The complexion, the walk and the attire did fit the neurologist for the brief moment that he'd seen him, but his tired mind just might have been putting a familiar face on a stranger.

Chase shuffled weakly between the refuse and the people, who had been tossed aside, and got to the exit. He was standing at first but eventually slid against the wall down to the dirty pavement. He was weak, he was tired, he was in pain again. He'd made it back to New Jersey, though he couldn't recall how. He remembered seeing House in the hospital but he hadn't really been there. Then he'd awoken tucked next to a dumpster in this alley feeling very tired. He'd sat there for what probably amounted to hours, letting his memories and awareness slip back. Finally he knew enough to be secure in his complicated identity as both Robert Chase and Mastema. But his wrists hurt and his back. There was no blood but the stigmata were not done with him yet.

Chase wasn't sure what to do. Reaching out to the familiar was a last desperate bid.

His eyes fluttered shut while he waited for Foreman to go by again. He barely managed to wake before his target was completely by him. "Hey…wait…" Chase's voice was raspy and unfamiliar to even his own ears. He reached out to touch the passing man but only managed to skim the pant at his lower leg.

"I don't have any change," Foreman dismissed after taking a superficial glance at the bum that had touched him.

Chase waited for the spark of recognition to lighten the harsh gaze. It never came. Foreman continued on, his pace a touch faster than it had been. Slowly Chase brought his hand back in, pulling in his disappointment as well.

There eyes had met. Foreman had looked right at him. Then he walked away.

"Don't let him get to you," A tentative hand fell on his shoulder. Chase turned to the person, a woman, middle-aged and apparently of sound mind.

"I know him…"

The woman shrugged. "I know people. They don't see us, even when they look right at us."

Chase shook his head, eyes on his tattered clothes. "I don't want to be invisible."

The woman barked out a harsh laugh and shifted away from him. "I do."

---H/C---

He wandered around for sometime after that, trying to decided what he was to do. He thought that this would be over. He thought, after everything that had happened in Israel he would be in the clear for another seven years. But his feet, his wrists, all the places where the wounds had marked his body, still hurt. He stopped and sat at a bench, unaware of how far he had walked, or in what neighbourhood he now rested in. A drop of rain skimmed his cheek. A moment later one made direct contact with his forehead. More drops came down until it was a moderate drizzle. Chase gaze up at the sky, where clear starlit portions were mixed with the heavy clouds that provided the chilly shower.

"What do you want?" Chase asked of the sky. "What more am I supposed to say?"

A plaid umbrella suddenly blocked his view. "You're going to get sick out here."

Chase gave a leery stare at the man standing before him. Another priest, terrific, he thought.

"I'm fine."

"Don't be stupid. There's a place for you to wait out the rain. And you can leave or stay after it's stopped." The man gestured to the building behind Chase, who turned and grimaced. Another church, fantastic.

"Everyone is welcome," the pastor said.

Chase responded after an extended pause. "I don't think you'd like the company I keep." A shadow passed between the two men. Only Chase saw it.

---H/C---

Cameron greeted Foreman the next morning and kept her eyes on the man as he stalked tiredly in.

"Didn't get much sleep last night?" she said, not concealing her innuendo at all.

Foreman went through his morning routine and didn't respond. Once his jacket was hanging, his briefcase was at the side and a cup of coffee was in his hand, he sat down. Cameron had gone back to the journal in her hand but looked up when Foreman spoke.

"I saw Chase yesterday."

"What? Where?" Cameron was surprised but the flutter of concern she felt at Foreman's words.

"I didn't realise it was him though," Eric went on dejectedly, trying to explain. "It was by the Patelli Fine Food store. He called out but I… I just kept going, barely glanced at him." Foreman released his mug and scrubbed his face with his hands, trying perhaps to wipe away the fatigue and the guilt. "He was sitting with a bunch of bums. I didn't recognize him…until it all clicked at three in the morning."

Everything had jumped into place and he would never forget the surprise and the shame that he startled awake with. He'd hastily donned his jacket and a pair of sneakers and sped back to the small strip of businesses. The homeless people he'd snubbed hours ago were still there. Some might have left but he hadn't been paying enough attention the first time around to make an accurate comparison. What he did quickly find out was that the man he was looking for was gone. He'd walked the alley up and down numerous times, thinking that the familiar face was lost in the darkness. It wasn't. The familiar face was no longer there to be found. By the time he was ready to give up the loose change in his jacket pocket that he liked to use for parking and impulse buys was gone, the pleas for spare change having been responded too as barely and after thought while he'd searched.

When he paused near the entrance of the alley, a sigh of something that might have been disappointment and maybe doubt on his lips, a woman laughed. Foreman turned to look at her. She was counting the change she'd just been given.

"Your friend is gone. You're too late."

"Where did he go?"

"Don't know. Don't care."

Foreman shook his head and had gone back to his car.

"Do you see us now?" she'd taunted after him.

Foreman omitted the details, simply telling Cameron, "I went back to look for him. He wasn't there. Nobody knows where he went."

Cameron didn't know what to do or say to allay the obvious conflict in Foreman's eyes. "At least we know he's around and he's okay." Foreman didn't respond. "He'll find his way home."

"Who will?" Cameron and Foreman looked to find Doctor Wilson in the doorway.

Cameron glanced and Foreman before answering. "Chase."

Wilson quickly got the story from them and once he had, he rushed to inform House.

"Okay."

"Okay? That's it? You've been pining for him to come back for days!"

"I wasn't pining," House opposed stubbornly.

Wilson didn't understand it. Had House really given up? Had Chase contacted him?

"When can I get out of here?" House asked, eyes averted.

Wilson was silent for several seconds. He shook himself and went for the door. "I'll check," he said quietly as he left.

House closed his eyes. Chase said he'd come back. He'd promised even. House would be patient, for as long as he could.

---H/C---

**End Chapter 12**


	14. Genesis

**Sinnerman**, **Prophet**,

_by Sagga Bott_

Chase, House, others

Summary: The marks of the saints and a past he won't remember force Chase and House to face religion head on. They won't get his fellow without a fight!

Pairings: Chase/OMC, House/Chase

Rating: PG-13

Warning(s): Language, Adult Situations, Violence, M/M relationships. Do not read this story if any of these bother you!

Genre: Drama, Action/Adventure, Supernatural (far out of the House MD realm later)

Spoilers: Up to season 4 Finale.

**Chapter 13 - Genesis**

Saint Sebastian's was both the pride and bane of its neighbourhood. Nobody would deny that the parish did good work. Who would look at the volunteers making a real difference for the poor and unwanted and not commend them? At least publicly. In private, other thoughts were less charitable. Too often those the church was attempting to help would spill onto the street, or wander away from where they were wanted.

Chase shrugged as a man walking his dog spared him only a cutting glance in response to his polite wave. In all fairness the church was here first. Chase smirked and didn't turn to look when the man tripped over his own "shadow" and fell to the sidewalk in an undignified manner.

Maybe this whole Demon-Commander, Lord-of-Evil thing wasn't so bad if he could upstage assholes.

Would have been useful in high-school.

The garbage taken out, Chase returned to his temporary dwelling. Perhaps there was a downside of this whole situation. Churches gave him an unprecedented creepy feeling when he crossed their threshold. It was as though he was stepping closer to all the things he hadn't known he'd been running from. But the unknown was now known; a calling he'd tried to avoid, a legacy that he didn't want to live up, or down to (depending on whose opinion one took). He knew a bit about those on both fronts.

So here he was, in a church, when he really wanted to be in bed, his bed preferably, with House next to him would be even better. Unfortunately he couldn't go back. He was stuck in this house-of-God, keeping his wicked and unholy thoughts to himself while he tried to figure out what was next.

He knew it wasn't over. Sure, he felt safe from Antolovich and the rest of them. They wouldn't come after him again if they valued their short lives –but there was something else that he felt building, something he needed to wait out. And as uncomfortable as it made him feel, a holy building seemed the best cover for the moment, despite his personal feelings for it.

"Robert, could you help me with the beds?" the Father asked. His soft smile and unthreatening nature was offset by the man's curious mannerisms. Maybe it was a result of his seminary training but Chase was sure he'd never a met a more relaxed and accepting clergyman.

"Of course," Chase responded disinterestedly.

The Padre's smile increased slightly as he handed the blond man half the stack of sheets and began toward the basement.

"I'd like to thank you for your help," the older man began. He kept his eyes ahead as he spoke trying to make his words casual in hopes that he wouldn't scare off the skittish man. "I guess we didn't realise how much had to be done around here until you came along."

"It's nothing."

"No, it's not. If it were, I wouldn't be thanking you. So just smile and say you're welcome."

Chase bit his bottom lip trying not to smile and mumbled out something that vaguely sounded like "you're welcome."

They continued to the room filled with cots and began changing the sheets. They worked well together –Chase not minding the priest's running dialogue and the Priest not minding his companion's limited words. The Father's running commentary was a pleasant distraction from the thoughts and images running through Chase's head and the spectres walking before his eyes.

"I keep telling him not to expect perfection, nobody on this earth is capable of it. And perfect mourning? Of all the things to excel at, why this? I suppose he wants to be the strong one, to move on and hold the rest of his family together, but it's not a decision he can make consciously. And no parent can ever recover completely from the loss of a child. It's just…" the reverend shook his head in mild consternation. "…there's no such thing, perfect mourning."

"There is perfect pain." Light from a car passing outside slipped through the small set of windows near the ceiling and caught the younger man's eyes, creating a bright, eerie hollowness. The Priest would swear on his cross that the illusion lasted just a fraction of a second longer than the brief flood of headlights warranted. "Father?"

"Sorry," he gave a slight shake of his head, "my mind wandered there for a moment."

Chase knew it was a lie. The Priest saw what Chase had felt flash within him. He turned back to his task and turned his back to the other man to complete the job in silence. When it was done he left without waiting for the priest. He didn't respond to the call of his name. With each step he took the name "Robert" became less and less familiar, until there was barely any Robert left within him.

Finally he reached the small room they had generously offered him. He stepped in and the door shut behind him without his needing to touch it. There was no lock but anybody who might have tried would not have been able to open it.

A burning sensation began to creep along his back. It spread over his body to pool in the all too familiar locations of his stigmata. There was no blood, only warm, reddened skin.

_ …Mastema…_

For the first time that he could recall, he heard whispers, the familiar call of his name.

_ …it is time to go, Mastema…_

Was it? Was he supposed to leave now? Leave what? He'd forgotten. It happened from time to time, not that Chase would remember. When he embraced Mastema he forgot he was Robert Chase too.

_ …Brother…_

"Azazel?"

_ …there is work to be done…_

He dipped his head forward in a deep nod and laid down on the cot. The walls around him dissolved into a swirling sea of grey and white. He closed his eyes.

"Hello, Sarah."

"Good afternoon, Father. I had some time so I thought I'd come by and help with the evening meal," the middle-aged woman said cheerfully.

He smiled in return. "We need all the volunteers we can get. By the way," he added casually taking another quick look around the cluttered kitchen, "have you seen Robert around?"

"I'm afraid not. But when you find him, send him my way," Sarah said with a cheeky smile and raised eyebrow.

The Father laughed. "Please control yourself, at least while in God's house," he joked, but inwardly worried. He hadn't seen Robert since the night before. It seemed nobody had. He'd checked Robert's room too. Last night the door has been locked, which was strange since he didn't remember a lock being installed on that door. This morning the door had been open and the room empty. And the Father checked. There was no lock on the door.

"If you see him, please let him know that I'm looking for him," he said without letting his concern taint his voice.

Sarah smiled and nodded.

---H/C---

He saw Chase last night. Perhaps saw was too strong a word. He'd… distinguished the faint form of his…his what? Lover? Boyfriend? He'd distinguished the faint form of Chase. This wasn't the first time either. It had been a week since he'd left the hospital, two weeks since he'd walked in dazed and unresponsive, following the voice and figure that only he'd been able to see.

Since he'd been at home, House had often felt as though he wasn't alone. He'd pass by the mirror, in the corridor between his bedroom and living room, and sometimes he'd double back, looking for the familiar face he thought he'd seen. On some nights he'd be up, reading or watching TV and he'd glance to the side, or up from his book and find Chase there.

"I'm going nuts," House said to himself, scratching at his stubbled jaw. Actually it would be a relief for House if he were simply going insane. It was practically a fashion statement to be on one psychotherapeutic drug or another. And mental illness was something that every person House would consider moderately intelligent believed in. Astral projection was not.

Whatever his thoughts on it, it didn't change the fact that last night he had indeed seen Robert Chase, his missing fellow. House had refrained from asking questions. He never received answers anymore. Instead Chase had sat next to him while House had tinkered with his piano, not really playing any pieces, just messing with some melodies. Chase had seemed content to listen, if he could listen at all in that state.

House found himself telling Chase things simply because he was unsure what precisely was going on. He wasn't a nervous talker –he prided himself on having more control than that. He spoke so that Chase would stay longer. When he was silent, and if Chase wasn't pressed close to him House found his blond ghost vanished much quicker.

"I have to say I don't regret it. The night in the yard wasn't a hell of a lot of fun, but I survived, right?" House had asked, not expecting or wanting an answer. What he'd gotten was a light touch to his cheek. It turned his head and looked at his companion. Chase's eyes were closed but he leaned his face close to Greg's and pressed his nearly nonexistent lips to the older man's. As he pulled away his eyes opened and House felt fear like he'd only felt once before. When they had been in Israel, when Chase had been arguing with something that put a strange spell on him, he'd felt like this. But this time House was not in fear for his own life. He feared for others.

Like being in the eye of a hurricane, he was untouched by the fury all around him. In the bright eyes he'd read, through some instinct, the calamity Chase could and would cause.

"No. Chase…Robert don't!"

Chase kissed him again and faded away in the middle of it.

House had reached out for him and found nothing but cool air. He'd debated with himself for an hour before calling his parents. It took him three tries before he had dialled the number correctly. His father's voice barked a greeting that sounded more like a curse into the phone. Greg had never been so relieved; even more so to hear that they were both fine and that the only disturbance they had experienced that night was the unexpected call of their son at one in the morning.

Greg could no longer wait. Whatever was going on, whatever Chase was facing, House knew he needed to be there. Someone needed to be there. Someone to call him on his bullshit, someone to make him see reason. With his hand clinched into his aching thigh, House promised. Chase would not face this trial on his own. Pitiful, weak, imperfect human that he was, he was Chase's strongest, and best connection to a life House saw rapidly fading from his eyes.

House wasn't the only one who saw it. Day after day, the pastor of St. Sebastian's found himself growing more wary of his guest. The others didn't notice at first, simply commenting on how they missed the man's bright smile. Lately, however, many people purposely avoided Robert, and Robert did the same. He stayed locked in his room for several hours, emerging only to walk straight out of the church and vanish almost before their eyes into shadows that hadn't existed a moment prior.

He was still debating with himself what to do the next day, after yet another fruitless attempt to talk to Robert. Shamefully, he'd almost considered saying he was unavailable when he received a call from a family with an ill member at Princeton-Plainsboro asking him to perform the last rights. He got through the ritual –he'd done it many times before- and left the family with a little comfort. The moment he shook the last relative's hand his mind was on his problem again.

Similarly House's mind was on his own dilemma. They didn't even notice each other as the passed by in the hall. Something else stopped them, something else made them turn around and had their eyes meeting.

"Where is he, Demarco?" House demanded, once recognition graced him.

"Why do you care Doctor House?" the priest responded.

The people in the corridor parted for the physician as he stomped his way to the priest.

"I asked first." Despite the nonchalance of the tone, Demarco could see only the worry in his eyes. "Where is he?" House asked again, but there was an added timbre to his voice. Someone else was asking too. Demarco glanced around. Something else was there; something else was looking for Robert.

Finally, Demarco shook off his discomfort and responded. "He goes and comes. He's not so friendly these days. I'll take you to him," he eventually relented. Demarco began away, House in step, and not half a step behind House, Azazel followed cursing holy men with vehemence that only he could muster.

---H/C---

"How did you find me?" Chase asked. The church was protected, sacred ground. He was supposed to be safe here. He didn't receive a response to his question.

"Holy fucking shit, a church –you chose to hide in a church?" Azazel stared down the aisle, then turned around to face the altar and the images in stained glass.

"Last place you would think to look."

Tense shoulder's rolled, attempting to ease the uncomfortable and unfamiliar sense of anxiety. "I think I'm allergic to them."

Chase shifted, made himself comfortable in the wooden pew, and faced the man who looked a great deal like him, but was no man at all.

"What do you want?"

"An answer. What do you intend to do?"

Chase tilted his head to one side, then the other, eyes up and lips rolled in as he acted out his contemplation. "Not quite sure yet."

"You have to make a decision."

Chase smirked, his eyes an unnatural brightness. "What? Are you going to make me? You, Azazel, who's afraid of me?"

The other blond man, the one who chose his form to mimic his nearest kin raised his head in defiance and looked down his nose at Robert who smiled while saying: "I forgot. I forgot that I may not be the originator of swearing, or sin, but I could read weakness. I taught you fear."

"A feeling you're quite familiar with are you not? Fear perhaps that someone you admire, or even love is going to be torn apart."

Chase met the narrowed eyes of Azazel's incarnation.

"I'll break his precious mind, that he'll wish for death every second of his unnaturally long life."

"And I'll take vengeance on you for eternity," Chase countered, only to receive a smile in return.

Azazel clapped. "That's what I like to see, Mastema. You, as you should be. Not weak and fragile, not this human that you are. A creature like me, like all of us! And if your vengeance upon me is the consequence, then I welcome it. And your return."

"Don't you fucking—"

"Chase!" Loud banging against the chapel's main doors echoed through the shadowy room.

"How convenient," Azazel smiled.

---H/C---

"Don't you have a key?"

"Where would you suggest I stick it?" Demarco snapped. He struck the door where, in the flat piece of black metal, there should have been a keyhole, not a smooth panel.

"Something doesn't want us inside," House stated.

"Or, something doesn't want something else outside."

"Only one way to find out. Is there a back entrance?"

"Aren't you going to let them in? Release the doors. I promise no harm will come to them."

"A promise, from you? You don't know the meaning."

"Now, now, this is for your own good," Azazel struggled to say as ghostly bindings enfolded around him.

"What would you know of good?"

"About as much as you know."

"Mastema," A new voice called.

"Azreal. Join the party," Azazel croaked as the binding he struggled against tightened. He was sent reeling a moment later as another blow struck. The man careened down the long aisle of pews, coming to rest only after a collision with two demolished one and cracked another.

Chase turned angry eyes to the newcomer. "That was a cheap shot. I already had him under control." They both ignored the disbelieving snort from the debris covered Azazel.

The angel of death, as he was often called, was, a Mastema knew, a being of very limited words. However, the stoic silence hid a cunning and determined being.

"I'm not going with you either." The arrogant announcement was met with silence and an inhuman expression of disappointment.

"It's time for you to choose!" Azazels' demand was followed by a blanket of darkness. The darkness was fought back by luminensce at Azrael's end. In the middle, Chase was where Mastema always found himself –deep in grey.

He shook his head. "I think my choice was clear twenty-eight years ago."

"A coward's choice," Azazel scoffed. The blood on his face evaporated, the cuts healed and he was flawless once again. "But if you want to be a coward, then I'll drag you back like one."

Mastema laughed. "You can both go ahead and try."

---H/C---

The side entrance that connected the church to the shelter was unlocked but the door wouldn't budge. Demarco and House had struggled to get the locking mechanism to turn over, even with the key. Now they were blocked yet again.

"Robert's room had been like this before –no lock on the door but it wouldn't open. I think he's trying to keep us out," Demarco deduced. From the other side of the wooden barrier a cry of pain was heard.

"That was Chase." House's voice was primed with volatile emotion.

A scant moment later the door clicked open a sliver.

"I don't think that's Robert inviting us in," Demarco warned but he didn't turn away.

House didn't care who or what let him in. Like Demarco he had a feeling something momentous, and probably dangerous, was taking place within the church's walls. Still, he rarely chose the more cautious path. Now wasn't the time to start.

"Well somebody invited us in. Don't want to be rude." House gently pushed the door open and slipped in. Demarco took a calming breath and as he was beginning to follow he saw the door rock briefly and knew it wasn't going to be open much longer. He dashed in just as the door swung shut, clipping his shoulder hard.

Inside the church all was calm. House and Demarco stood near the door and observed the three men that appeared just to be standing around. A few paces behind the altar was one man that House thought he recognized from the event in the Chapel of St. Vartan. At the far end was the long lost brother, Azazel, and as House's eyes settled on the demon, he thought he saw the man smile. Lastly, between the two, was Chase, back to the altar, eyes harshly set on Azazel. The air was charged with conflict and House's heart raced though he could see no danger. But as surely as the air he breathed and the pain in his thigh, he could feel it.

Chase's gazed shifted to House and Demarco momentarily. The moment of distraction did not pass unused. A blow caught Chase at this left side. He bit back his explicative but for a moment the forces being thrown about had worlds colliding.

The calm church interior blinked into a stark, sharp world where the stain glass images writhed and existed as masses of colour. Disembodied voices raced over the desolation, whispering and screaming taunts. The church pews were in shambles –shards and splinters of the dark stained wood everywhere, even falling from the cloudless night sky where once the roof had been. It seemed that a hundred years had passed in an instant. The church was barely more than collapsed walls, crumbling columns and disintegrated relics. Around Chase, Azrael and Azazel swirled within masses of disturbed air. Bright spectres stood over them, horrible, ferocious creatures that roared with inaudible battle cries. Destruction flew between them, blackening sight like a momentary faint, or blinding it, like a strike of lightning.

Suddenly, the expanse of desolation and destruction vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The church was once more in tact.

"Dear God," House heard Demarco mutter from somewhere behind him. House had no time for awe. Chase had fallen to one knee and one hand.

Air! His lungs couldn't seem to get enough. He panted, gasped, tasted the ferrous tang of blood. Only God knew what sort of internal damage he might have sustained; it was surely beyond Chase's medical mind at the moment. He could practically hear Azazel's smirk, revelling in his prematurely counted victory. Azrael was equally as confident, though too clever and too wary to let it show through his stony affect.

Anger suddenly swept through him. Quickly it morphed to a blistering rage as a phantasmagoria of a million lives and torments overcame his senses. And then just as the storm would abate the final blow. A familiar face, a beloved smile, a dying eye –his Watcher's dying eye- appeared and vanished before him.

"There is nothing left for you here." Azrael's voice flowed around him, muting his emotions with its cooling touch. Across the church Azazel jerked and shivered, the touch a little too cool for him. "You don't belong here."

Chase struggled to his feet and quickly began for Azrael. In a flash of light two misty beasts collided and vanished under deafening thunder.

"Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." Demarco muttered direly, fearfully as he watched the unbelievable battle rage.

House spared him only a brief look of disgust. A scream cut through the air and a dull thud reverberated through the bench. Azrael had won the clash and sent Chase careening into the wooden structures. "Chase!" House cut his way between the pews trying to reach his stilled fellow. He never saw the strike coming. A few feet away from Chase he felt a sense of dread overcome him.

A fraction of a second later House was thrown back the way he had come. The world flashed to the other landscape again, just in time to see a blast of fury tear up the ground and the remains of the church as it cut a path from Azazel to where House had been a moment ago.

The holds on him registered at last and House looked to find two shadowy creatures at each arm. Their true form was lost in the murkiness that cloaked them, but House knew he probably didn't want to know what they looked like.

"Almost had him," Azazel said, once again as the setting returned to the earthly church.

Panting Chase glared at his sibling, his friend.

"You're not giving me any other choice," Azazel said in response to Chase's expression.

"If there is only one thing I've learnt, it's that there's always a choice. And I make my own now."

A millisecond flash of luminescent wings, fiery eyes, twisted horns, heaven-light and hell-fire transformed the scene to a high-contrast world of clashing forces and sense-numbing stimulation.

Mastema rose from the ruins. "I choose to end this, now!"

Simultaneously, Azazel and Azrael fell, an unbearable force driving them nearly into dust. Overlaying the normal image of the church the scene of destruction appeared. The force spread over the ground, levelling all in its path and leaving only the most resilient ruins behind. The churning unrest suddenly stilled. The deafening white-noise was silenced. The heat and burning, cooled, while the biting chill dispersed. At the center, Mastema stood, shakily.

Avenues of retreat, admissions of defeat, opened behind the other two beings. They melted into the undulating portals, before fading away. The unnaturally darkness at one end of the church and the brightness at the other let subtle indication that the two opposing factions had not entirely drawn away.

Chase addressed them.

"I've made my choice. I choose my life here. Try and take it away from me and I'll reap havoc greater than biblical proportions." The harsh eyes, shifted between the two presences, sending his message to both. "I am no longer your soldier."

His defiance brought an intense heat to his back. The bamophet that had been drawn into Chase's skin re-emerged, blistering his skin and singeing his shirt until it caught fire.

The stigmata reappeared all at once, cutting into his flesh, pouring out his blood.

The pain was so great that he felt his body yearning for the promise of unconsciousness but he wouldn't allow himself to give in. He crashed to the floor and thought that he heard someone call his name.

"Chase!" House made another attempt to get to Chase and this time was successful. The flames were quickly consuming Chase's shirt and burning his skin. The smell of it was repugnant but House didn't let it or the obvious agony across Chase's face turn him away.

House removed his jacket and used it to put out the flames. Not soon enough the fire was out. His hand hovered over the burnt and trembling back, wanting to touch and give comfort but knowing that his touch would only bring more pain.

"Hang on, Chase," House urged, not knowing for what Chase would be hanging on for, but being stubborn had seen him through enough tough situations to warrant a little faith in at least that.

The symbol on Chase's back, still visible through the burns and the whip marks, moved as House had seen it do once before. The goat's head contorted in agony. The words written in the border around the image spun round with increasing speed until they were blurred. Finally the entire image froze and became messy scribbles that looked like they had been drawn in haste by someone with little artistic talent.

Chase's body gave a violent shudder, nearly a convulsion as, at last, the searing heat faded. House's urge to touch him was thwarted by his sense. On hands and knees he lowered his head, trying to catch Chase's tortured sight.

"Robert, you're going to be okay," House assured. He wondered if that was true but he had to make sure Chase didn't plan on giving up. With his burn injuries along with everything else, he was going to need every bit of determination left in him to recover. "It's okay. You made it."

Blue eyes drifted about until landing on House's. His mouth was open trying to suck in enough air but he could barely move, leaving his breaths short and raspy. Tears fell from the wide eyes, caused by pain worse than anything he'd ever felt before. His only comfort was House's presence, House's constancy. Their eyes stayed that way, focussed on each other. House lay down next to Chase, staying close, never wavering, until after much time had passed, the pain receded and the wounds healed.

The sores closed and healed themselves, which, no matter how many times House saw it, still astounded him. Even the deep burns on Chase's back healed. The blistered, bubbled, and blackened skin was replaced underneath by a new, healthy barrier, while the burnt flesh simultaneously evaporated into nothingness.

"There's not a single mark left," Demarco said in awe. He drew closer to observe the sight. "He's completely healed." The priest crossed himself. "It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of deer, and sets me on high places. He teaches my hands to make war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze."

House felt the urge to hit him. Instead he carefully laid his hand on Chase's shoulder. He felt for himself the muted shivers that still ravaged the man's body.

"Is he still in pain?" Demarco asked.

House didn't know. Being burnt alive and stabbed repeatedly was obviously an unpleasant experience. "The injuries are gone, maybe the pain too, but he can't just forget it."

He really couldn't; it replayed in his mind and across his body like a dying echo. His best anchors to what was real were the intense blue eyes and the measured touch on his back. The touch left him suddenly and Chase shivered.

House looked at his hand, having removed it when he felt something wet. His fingers had black ink on them.

"It's coming off," House announced. Demarco seeing the smudged curse could be removed, immediately went about doing so with his handkerchief, and when that was covered ink, he used his sleeves. He may not have known the precise meaning, but he knew a satanic marking when he saw it.

House re-established his connection with Chase and chanced a touch to a slack but trembling hand. Without warning Chase's hand seized around his desperately.

"It's okay," House repeated.

Eventually, but not soon enough, Chase's tired body would give out and he would sleep, escaping for the worst of his torment, his choice made and, more importantly, upheld.

"I have pursued my enemies and overtaken them; neither did I turn back again till they were destroyed. I have wounded them, so that they were not able to rise; they have fallen under my feet. For You have armed me with strength for the battle; You have subdued under me those who rose up against me…"

---H/C---

"You're a doctor."

"That's what the paper on my wall says."

The pastor stared at the lit cigarette. "And you smoke."

"Only when I'm really happy!"

"I suppose that would be the famous sarcasm." Demarco took a seat next House and made no comment when House glared at him and shifted further away. "I would appreciate it, however, if you refrained from smoking in the chapel."

With an aggravated sigh and a roll of his eye House put out the cigarette, on the carpet. "What? You're going to get it changed anyway." House struggled up from his seat next to the blood stains and charred flooring.

The Pastor took calming breath. "Our parish isn't made of money. We can't pay for new carpet." He shrugged. "Besides, not many churches have the mark of a miracle on their floor."

"I don't see any miracle. All I see is a ruined carpet. And it doesn't even look like anything. If you want to see a real miracle, get some _Oxy-Clean_."

Demarco shook his head and didn't turn to watch House go. "You know, one day he might be Saint Robert."

"Not if I can help it."

House returned to the small room that had served as Chase's. Chase was sitting up in bed, forehead resting on his knees.

"How you feeling?"

"Tired. How are you?"

"I'm fine."

"Cigarette helped did it?"

There was no response.

"I can smell it on you."

"Oh. I was expecting something more supernatural."

"Sorry to disappoint."

House sat on the edge of the bed, Chase's bare and healed back to him. Only two hours ago it had been severely damaged. House ran his hand over the younger man's back, tracing the muscle groups in relief under the warm, bare canvas. "You ready to go?"

"Go where? I'm sure my landlord has gotten rid of my boxes and rented out my old place."

"For the time being you can take the other half of my bed. We'll find you a new place." House was pretty sure that no matter how much he might like Chase, living together for anytime more than briefly, would be the perfect way to make them hate each other.

Chase turned to sit next to House, putting his bare feet on the small rug the covered the polished concrete floor. He stared into the now well-known to him, blue depths. "Thank you." He turned his head away looking for a shirt but he'd barely had a chance to glance around when House grasped his chin and turned him back. "What?" Chase asked as House looked carefully at his eyes. "What is it?"

House's eyes narrowed minutely, in both consternation and suspicion. "Your eyes…"

"I figured that. What about them?"

Smart-ass, a tiny voice in House's mind retorted. "There just…different."

"I don't feel any different," Chase said. "Maybe…maybe…whole."

Anybody else, at any other time, House would have ridiculed them. To Chase he just kissed him. He couldn't be certain about much, but was certain about this. Carnality, at the very least, this mere mortal could grasp. And hold on to.

---H/C---

Sometimes it was like being able to appreciate the most complicated an enduring piece of art ever envisioned. At others it was like watching self-destruction in motion. Chase was sure he was losing touch –perhaps losing his mind too. House sure seemed to think so, but the man remained almost patient with him, or at the very least intrigued by him. It wasn't everyday that one could deduce a total stranger's history, and weakness, and yet sometimes have no concept of empathy for them.

"Knowledge doesn't breed empathy," House had attempted to explain what he didn't quite understand himself. "Experience does."

Sometimes it seemed he believed, at others he was a staunch opponent. Chase was only amused by House's straddling of the fence. But House never, no matter which way the winds of his intellect pointed him, questioned the experience that Chase related to him. Chase was grateful for him, because the only other person Chase would have turned to was gone.

"Do I know you?" The tall, handsome man wracked his brain trying to find the memory that made the blond man standing before him seem so familiar. In the end he found nothing.

"No. I just wanted to…to make sure…and to say good-bye."

"Oh." The man was confused, and with good reason. It wasn't everyday a stranger introduced themselves but already knew your name.

"Warren! Come on we're going to be late, again!" A woman called about half-way down the short block.

"You better not keep her waiting," Chase warned with a warm smile.

Stiffly, still unsure of why the other man felt so familiar, Warren nodded. "Well, good-bye…I guess."

"Bye."

Warren began away but stopped when he was half way around, facing the dark exterior glass of the building to which they stood next. The eyes of the reflection looked to Chase with complete recollection. 'I love you,' the reflection mouthed.

"Always love you," Chase replied softly. The reflection smile briefly then faded away. Chase looked up to find Warren already down the block and in the arms of his girlfriend. He smiled sadly but with a sense that they had both finally completed together what they needed to do. Nothing would take away that bond. Still, they could both continue forward, even if only one remembered, even if not with the other.

Chase meandered to a bench next to bus stop not far away. He sat next to a man hidden behind a newspaper. Chase kept his eyes forward for a few seconds until a smile tipped his lips. He grabbed the newspaper out of the man's hands and met his small startled cry with his lips.

"Checking up on me?" Chase asked against the soft lips and rough stubble.

"I was just in the neighbourhood."

"House, you're halfway across the world from your neighbourhood." House remained stubbornly silent. Chase didn't expose him, though an impromptu trip to Australia, where Chase just happened to be (though he hadn't told House where he'd been heading, or why) was a tad more than suspicious.

Chase stood with an easy sigh, as though a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "Come on, I'll show you around. I'll even introduce you to a local delicacy."

House joined him in standing. "If you're talking about vegemite, you can skip that part of the tour. This is one tourist you're not tricking into trying that crap."

Chase laughed. They began down the street, House's poor disguise abandoned on the bench. They were just two men walking down the street, enjoying a nice day like the other normal people.

Chase stopped suddenly. He grabbed a woman by the arm before she could pass. "Don't you fucking dare," he warned, but his white eyes were looking past her. The shadow behind her receded into nothing. Chase let go. The woman continued on, her steps lighter than before, and her mind unconcerned with the odd encounter.

"Chase." His name and a gentle touch at the back of his neck returned him from the complications around him. House could almost see the awareness return to the other man, and the isolation left behind. It was isolation that only House was could ease.

Chase looked lost for a moment, even worried over his sudden and uncontrolled descent. But House was there, a familiar comfort, a new anchor.

"Come on. You promised me a tour."

**End Chapter 13**

**End Sinnerman, Prophet, Saint**

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it. My apologies for the wait. I would like to write more about House and Chase's adventures in this universe, maybe a crossover with other supernatural shows and/or movies. I don't imagine getting to it any time soon unfortunately. Again, thanks for reading.

…**Sagga**


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